Geary

Boy name variations

Family name origins & meanings

• Irish : reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Gadhra ‘descendant of Gadhra’ (see O’Gara). See also McGeary.
• English : from a personal name derived from Germanic gēr, gār ‘spear’, a short form of any of various compound names with this as a first element (see, for example Garrett).
• English : nickname for a wayward or capricious person, from Middle English ge(a)ry ‘fickle’, ‘changeable’, ‘passionate’ (a derivative of gere ‘fit of passion’, apparently a Scandinavian borrowing).
• Possibly an altered spelling of German Gehring or Gehrig.
• Most present-day Irish bearers of the name Geary and its variants and derivatives are descended from a single 10th-century ancestor, a nephew of Eadhra, who founded the family <xref>O’Hara</xref> in Connacht. The family is now spread more widely.