It’s actually a very famous city, but not for entirely good reasons. For starters, it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States.
However, Michael Jackson is from there. So there’s that.
Clearly not a fan of musical theater. The Music Man ~~takes place in~~ repeatedly refers to Gary. Ron Howard sings a song called Gary Indiana in the movie version. He’s about waist high in that movie.
Pretty close, but the musical takes place in the fictional town of River City, Iowa and Henry Hill claims to be an alumnus of the Gary Conservatory (class of '05), which is the hook used to launch the song in question.
Not all, only most Americans. For Brits it's usually after Sir Garfield (spear field) St Aubrun Sobers.
And even before Gary Cooper there were people using it for Gerald (spear power), Gerard (spear hard/brave), and (old) Gerbert (spear bright). It is a cousin to, but believed not historically derived from, Garrett/Garrod. It is unclear whether German/Germain derive from this root or not. It is usually unrelated to Jared (which is usually a Hebrew name, but does have spelling variants that overlap Garrod).
Gary, Indiana is still memorable to me 50 years later from when we'd drive through it, handkerchiefs pressed to our faces to block out the terrible smell from some sort of toxic industry. Is Gary still like that or has it been cleaned up?
