Gerald

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Gerald is a given name, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 45th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and French, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Old French/Old Germanic Gerald/Girald, meaning 'spear-ruler'; first attested Robertus filius Geraldi 1086 DB.

rarermore common
  • ATAustria1 in 539◐
  • CACanada1 in 863
  • SGSingapore1 in 921

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈266K ●

across 8 countries

#601 ●

of 16M given names

3 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
523 ●

4.3M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.3K ◐

United States

Spellings & scripts●

GeraldLatin · English●3.7M records
ג'רלדHebrew · Hebrew●1.9K records
제럴드Hangul · Korean●0 records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Jerald in CR Costa Rica, IN India, AL Albania and 2 more, Gérald in FR France and ג'רלד in IL Israel.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

from Old French/Old Germanic Gerald/Girald, meaning 'spear-ruler'; first attested Robertus filius Geraldi 1086 DB

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Gerald is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#134257,8333.4M rec.1 in 1.3K258KGerald523
GB United Kingdom#172209,205192K rec.—listedGerald224
PH Philippines#149124,43594K rec.—52KGerald146
CA Canada#13596,39793K rec.—2Gerald195
DE Germany#30072,62966K rec.——Gerald201
AU Australia#32059,59859K rec.—1Gerald174
FR France#96350,99417K rec.—32KGérald199
AT Austria#11730,67211K rec.—3.5KGerald165
IT Italy#31925,36726K rec.—2Gerald70
ZA South Africa#23713,11813K rec.——Gerald103
SG Singapore#4511,68812K rec.——Gerald121
IE Ireland#1429,4929.4K rec.——Gerald87

Roughly 258K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 1.3K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English3.7M77%
  • French198K4%
  • German192K4%
  • Spanish192K4%
  • 63K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English3,731,37277%
French197,8034%
German191,9644%
Spanish191,5474%
63,4291%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Gerald is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name495K records spelled Gerald9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Brazil

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Gérald, G'Erald

  • a separate given name73K records spelled Gerald3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Gérald, Gèrald

  • Polish given name23K records spelled Gerald40 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Russia, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Геральд, Джеральд, Jerald, Джералд, Geral'D

  • Hindi given name18K records spelled Gerald10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, Philippines

    Languages: Hindi, Sinhala, Urdu

    Also written Gérald

  • Indonesian given name18K records spelled Gerald6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Philippines, Malaysia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay, Malagasy

    Also written 'Gerald, Gérald, Gèrald

  • Greek given name8.6K records spelled Gerald3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa

    Also written Gérald, Ζεραλντ

  • Hungarian given name7.1K records spelled Gerald5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States, Finland, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Gérald

73 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Gerald is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Irish, Germanic ‘spear rule’; introduced after the Norman Invasion.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • In English, from Germanic name meaning 'rule' + 'spear'

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • from the personal name Gerald, Gerald, composed of the Germanic elements geri, gdri ‘spear’ + wald ‘rule’; it was introduced to Britain from France by the Normans.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, A male given name from the Germanic languages.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, different form of Garrett (ii).

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

05K10K15K19001950200011K · 1942

Show as table
Gerald in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
188011
188114
188215
188313
188419
188523
188628
188722
188830
188948
189044
189145
189262
189355
189475
189576
189695
189793
1898100
1899108
1900157
1901133
1902151
1903182
1904201
1905189
1906191
1907239
1908270
1909301
1910289
1911462
1912929
19131,142
19141,468
19152,085
19162,260
19172,486
19182,712
19192,689
19203,157
19213,382
19223,541
19233,696
19244,151
19254,507
19265,123
19275,511
19285,487
19295,965
19306,483
19316,823
19327,347
19337,422
19347,816
19358,458
19369,018
19379,425
19389,972
193910,057
194010,236
194110,942
194211,484
194311,367
194410,023
19458,857
194610,033
194710,750
19489,842
19499,808
19509,726
19519,539
19529,031
19538,619
19548,552
19558,072
19567,991
19577,595
19586,865
19596,636
19606,571
19616,630
19626,232
19636,156
19645,869
19655,252
19664,863
19674,873
19684,475
19694,384
19704,399
19713,588
19722,816
19732,592
19742,417
19752,398
19762,139
19772,046
19781,889
19791,863
19801,819
19811,764
19821,717
19831,549
19841,444
19851,446
19861,455
19871,441
19881,403
19891,469
19901,451
19911,261
19921,174
19931,116
1994954
1995889
1996822
1997773
1998671
1999686
2000680
2001609
2002556
2003529
2004552
2005472
2006465
2007472
2008415
2009396
2010348
2011373
2012346
2013329
2014281
2015312
2016284
2017271
2018242
2019245
2020230
2021217
2022206
2023213
2024178
2025168

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

190019201940196019802000Gerald Ford, b. 1913Gerald Durrell, b. 1925Ronald Wayne, b. 1934Stephen Breyer, b. 1938Jerry Brown, b. 1938Jerry Springer, b. 1944Gerald McRaney, b. 1947Ty Burrell, b. 1967Jerry Trainor, b. 1977G-Eazy, b. 1989
  • Gerald Fordb. 1913USpresident of the United States from 1974 to 1977 (1913–2006)
  • Gerald Durrellb. 1925GBBritish naturalist and writer (1925–1995)
  • Ronald Wayneb. 1934USnot in their usual nameAmerican engineer and co-founder of Apple Inc.
  • Stephen Breyerb. 1938USnot in their usual nameUS Supreme Court justice from 1994 to 2022
  • Jerry Brownb. 1938USnot in their usual nameGovernor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019 (born 1938)
  • Jerry Springerb. 1944USnot in their usual nameAmerican television personality and politician (1944–2023)
  • Gerald McRaneyb. 1947USAmerican actor
  • Ty Burrellb. 1967USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and comedian
  • Jerry Trainorb. 1977USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1977)
  • G-Eazyb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican rapper

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 101 sources across 55 countries.

Official registers attesting Gerald
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020258K#207
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020105.2K#6,476
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020005K#6,281
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.8K#6,695
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—3.7K#200
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)20243.5K#713
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20242.1K#470
AL AlbaniaINSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts)—1.4K#341
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—1.1K#2,009
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—658#12,081
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020598#207
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022463—

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 980 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Gerald?
We estimate roughly 266 thousand people bear Gerald (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Gerald have the most bearers?
We estimate about 258 thousand people bear Gerald in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled gerald.
How common is Gerald compared with other names?
In the United States, Gerald is the 134th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.
Is Gerald a male or female name?
Gerald is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Gerald mean?
Recorded meaning: from Old French/Old Germanic Gerald/Girald, meaning 'spear-ruler'; first attested Robertus filius Geraldi 1086 DB
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gerald

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Gerald” — the 134th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Gerald parses inside a full name →