Gerardo
Masculine · “spear-brave”
Gerardo is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 55,015 boys against 239 girls since 1880.
Gerardo is the Spanish and Italian shape of a Germanic warrior name that Frankish speakers carried south into Romance Europe more than a thousand years ago, where it softened into four open syllables. Say it aloud and the stress lands squarely in the middle — heh-RAR-do — with the same rolling cadence as Eduardo and Ricardo. It has been on American records since the early twentieth century and has never left them.
How old is the name Gerardo?
Gerardo first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Gerardo alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 52,000 people named Gerardo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Gerardo most popular?
Gerardo peaked in 1996, reaching #205 nationally. Today it ranks #678, 473 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Gerardo appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Gerhard to Gerardo
The story of Gerardo
The name begins as Old High German Gerhard, one of the many early Germanic compounds built from ger, "spear," and hard, "bold" or "hardy." Frankish and Lombard settlers carried it into what is now France and Italy, where it was reshaped by Romance mouths into Gérard, Gerardo and Geraldo; medieval Latin documents record it as Gerardus. Its Italian form belonged to Saint Gerard Majella, the eighteenth-century Redemptorist lay brother venerated as a patron of mothers and expectant mothers — a devotion that helped keep Gerardo alive in Catholic Italy and, through Spanish, across Latin America. In the United States it has been carried largely by Spanish-speaking families, and its strongest footholds are still in Texas, California and Arizona.
Meaning
spear-brave, from Germanic ger (spear) and hard (bold, hardy)
How the name formed
- Gerhard
- Gerardus
- Gérard
- Gerardo
Related forms: Gerardo · Gerardo · Gerard · Gérard · Gerhard · Gellért
Pronouncing Gerardo
heh-RAR-doh
That is the Spanish pronunciation, with a breathy initial G. Italian speakers say jeh-RAR-doh, and English speakers often land on juh-RAR-doh. All three are heard in the US, so it is worth deciding early which one your family will offer.
Nicknames for Gerardo
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1906
- Most boys named
- 19991,568 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #205reached in 1996
- Change vs 2023
- −17.5%401 in 2025, from 486
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Gerardo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gerardo in Spanish — same name
- Gerardo in Italian — same name
- Gerard in English — same name
- Gérard in French — same name
- Gerhard in German — same name
- Gellért in Hungarian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Arizona.
Gerardos among us
people named Gerardo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 4,260 born in 2025 was named Gerardo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Malcolm test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Gerardo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Malcolm climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Malcolm's path sketches the road Gerardo is walking now.
Gerardo sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Gerardo is headed
Gerardo should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Gerardo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Gerardo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged in Spanish and Italian, and has close relatives — Gerard, Gérard, Gerhard — in English, French and German.
- A documented line back to Germanic Gerhard, in continuous use for over a millennium.
- Several established short forms already in circulation: Gera, Gerry, Yayo.
- Spelled exactly as it sounds in Spanish, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to explain.
- The initial G is the sticking point in English-speaking places: expect juh-RAR-doh from teachers and strangers unless you correct it. Many families simply accept both pronunciations.
- It is easily confused in writing with Geraldo, Gerald and Gerard, so spelling it out over the phone becomes routine.
- Outside Texas, California and the Southwest it is much less familiar, and it has been stepping back from its high point — a child named Gerardo is unlikely to share the name with a classmate.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Gerardo
Masculine · #678 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Gerardos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 52,000 people named Gerardo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Gerardo in 2025?
- Gerardo ranks #678 among US boy names in 2025, with 401 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Gerardo?
- About 1 in every 4,260 US boys born in 2025 was named Gerardo — 401 in all.
- Will my child share the name Gerardo with classmates?
- Gerardo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Gerardo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Trevor#679 · Salem#679 · Houston#675 · Zaid#675 · Shawn#681 · Aurelio#681 · Madden#675 · Vincenzo#674
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Gerardo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Gerardo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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