Girard

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Variant of Gérard, Germanic ger + hard, 'spear' + 'strong'

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Girard is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In France it is the 33rd most common surname.

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CACanada≈1 in 2.9K
  • USUnited States1 in 26K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈180,000 people, est.

Sources
350 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Variant of Gérard, Germanic ger + hard, 'spear' + 'strong'.

Sources 1

  • Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Girard counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Girard is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈180,000 est.≈1 in 7.7K—Girard8
FR France#33≈46,000 est.≈1 in 1.5K6KGirard350
CA Canada#338≈13,000 est.≈1 in 2.9K—Girard205
US United States—12,9751 in 26K13KGirard300
GB United Kingdom—≈2,900 est.≈1 in 23K—Girard59
CH Switzerland—1,2781 in 6.6K1.3KGirard53

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Girard is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia

    Also written Gîrard, Girárd, Gîrãrd

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

66 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Girard is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In French, variant of Gerard (see Gerard). A family named Girard from Normandy was in Quebec city by 1660; another, from Le Mans, was in Quebec in 1663; and a third, from Poitou, was in Quebec city by 1666.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In French, a surname originating as a patronymic based on the given name Gérard

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, même origine que Guérard.

    as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition

  • In Italian, forma setentrional francófona de Girardo

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

  • In Italian, Variante di Gherardi

    as a nameDizionario dei cognomi italiani

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

150016001700180019002000Albert Girard, b. 1595Charles Frédéric Girard, b. 1822José-Maria de Heredia, b. 1842René Girard, b. 1923Danièle Delorme, b. 1926Rémy Girard, b. 1950René Girard, b. 1954Dominique Othenin-Girard, b. 1958François Girard, b. 1963Patricia Girard, b. 1968

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 45 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Girard
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,778
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200012K#2,677
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202012K#2,891
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19518.4K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19618.1K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19417.4K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19717.1K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19216.6K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19816.5K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19916K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19315.9K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19015.4K—

Reference works 8

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Girard mean, and where does it come from?
Variant of Gérard, Germanic ger + hard, 'spear' + 'strong'. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
In which country does Girard have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 181 thousand people named Girard in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled girard.
How common is the name Girard?
In the United States, the national register counted 12,975 people named Girard in 2010, about 1 in 26 thousand residents.
How common is Girard compared with other names?
In France, Girard is the 33rd most common surname of 1,200,812 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Girard?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/girard

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Girard” — the 33rd most common surname in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Girard parses inside a full name →