Garth (name)

A garth is an enclosed quadrangle or yard, especially one surrounded by a cloister (Middle English; Old Norse garþr, garðr; akin to Anglo-Saxon geard). This led to the word being given as a last name to people who worked in or near a garden.^[1] Later it came to be used as a first name.

It is also possible that the name Garth comes from Gareth [ˈɡarɛθ], a Welsh masculine given name of uncertain meaning. It first appeared in this form in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, in which it belonged to Sir Gareth, a brother of Gawain and one of the Knights of the Round Table. Malory based it on Gahariet, a name found in French Arthurian texts; it may have a Welsh origin, perhaps connected with the name Geraint, or the word gwaredd, meaning "gentleness". It is particularly popular in Wales, and Gary is sometimes taken as a pet form of it.