(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.
Short form: Dave.
Pet forms: Davy, Davey, Davie (mainly Scottish); Dai.
Cognates: Irish: Dáibhídh. Scottish Gaelic: Dàibhidh. Welsh: Dafydd, Dewi. German, Dutch: David. French: David. Spanish: David. Italian: Davide. Russian: David. Polish: Dawid. Czech: David. Finnish: Taavi. Hungarian: Dávid.
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.
FOREBEARS Most present-day Irish bearers of the name Geary and its variants and derivatives are descended from a single 10thcentury ancestor, a nephew of Eadhra, who founded the family O’Hara in Connacht. The family is now spread more widely.
