Garrett
Meaning
spear strength (variant of Gerald); famously borne by Garrett Morgan, inventor of an early gas mask and the three-position traffic signal
The story
Garrett looks like a modern surname pick, but it is medieval at the root: an English and Irish surname grown out of Gerald, the old Germanic name meaning spear strength, carried across the Channel by the Normans. Its proudest American bearer is Garrett Morgan, the son of formerly enslaved parents who became one of the country's great practical inventors: his safety hood, an early gas mask, helped rescue workers from a smoke-filled tunnel beneath Lake Erie in 1916, and his three-position traffic signal, with its warning interval, was a forerunner of the modern yellow light. The name itself kept a low, steady profile in US records for most of a century, then climbed sharply through the 1980s and 1990s and stayed strong through the 2010s. It has eased a little lately, which only adds to the appeal: familiar, sturdy, and no longer everywhere.
Garrett around the world
One shared root links 7 names across 4 languages.
Shared root: two Germanic ger "spear" compounds, Gerald with wald "rule" and Gerard with hart "hard, brave", so entangled in medieval English use that their descendants are shared
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Garrett peaked in the 1990s and the 2010s in nearly equal measure.
When you meet Garrett
Most people given the name Garrett in the United States were born between 1990 and 2009. The Garrett you meet today is most often in his 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Garrett deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Garrett truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Garrett fits with your family’s names and surname.
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