Gary

20,528 people in the United States were counted with the surname Gary in the 2020 census, making it the 1,710th most common in the country. That is about one person in 14,600.

By the numbers

People: 20,528
Rank: 1,710th
How common: 1 in 14,600
Per 100,000: 6.9

Where the name comes from

Origin Middle English, from a patronymic

Medieval short form of Germanic compound names beginning with gari or geri ("spear"), such as Gerard, Garrett, Gerald or Gerbert. Cognate with the Scottish and Irish - name Garaidh. Sometimes also a short form of Gareth.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Gary described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Black, not Hispanic 46.1%
White, not Hispanic 44.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Gary

Romain Gary (1914–1980)French writer and diplomat
Lorraine Gary (born 1937)American actress
Linda Gary (1944–1995)American voice actor

People named Gary with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Gary

Also a first name

Gary has been given to 905,438 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1952. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.