Cary

[poliphilo]

Cary sounds like a girl's name. How on earth did it end up attached to one of the icons of Hollywood masculinity?

Is it a shortening of Oscar?

Or a surname- like Nelson or Shirley- reused as a forename?

Or simply the invention of a wool-gathering Hollywood publicist?

Was Archibald Leach the first Cary or are there earlier examples? Wikipedia doesn't know of any. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

The only more recent Cary I can think of is the English actor Cary Elwes (b 1962)- whose given names are Ivan Simon Cary Elwes.