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

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Interesting question.... Personally I find nothing wrong with Archibald Leach.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Grant himself once said, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant- and so do I."