Gary

The name originated as an English surname derived from a Norman personal name rooted in the Germanic ger, meaning spear. In 1925, casting director Nana Collins suggested it as a screen moniker for actor Frank Cooper because she was from the steel town of Gary, Indiana. Once Cooper became a marquee Western hero, American parents turned the actor's invented stage name into a national staple.

The name reads as someone who keeps a dedicated drawer for spare extension cords and writes down part numbers on torn envelopes. With an average bearer age of sixty-five, a Gary is rarely pictured without a thermos nearby. Sixty-one percent of living bearers belong to the postwar generation, meaning the name spends most of its conversational hours on coolant flushes and property lines. It peaked in 1952 at number ten and has since largely retreated to the garage.