From the songbird name, ultimately from Latin 'Canariae Insulae' (Canary Islands).
Canary is one of the most improbable and captivating names in the English-language repertoire, carrying an etymology that winds from the Latin through the Spanish across the Atlantic. The Canary Islands were named *Canariae Insulae* by the Romans — 'Island of Dogs' — from *canis*, the Latin word for dog, likely a reference to the large dogs encountered there by early explorers. The bright yellow songbird was subsequently named for the islands where it was first brought to Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, not the other way around.
So Canary, as a name, is the linguistic heir of a dog. As a given name Canary is exceptionally rare, sitting at the far edge of the tradition of nature-names and bird-names that includes Robin, Jay, Wren, and Lark. The canary itself carries rich cultural symbolism: the 'canary in the coal mine' made the bird a universal metaphor for warning and sensitivity, while in popular culture the Yellow Canary is a celebrated DC Comics superhero identity, most associated with the fierce and skilled fighters Dinah Drake and Dinah Lance.
Jazz musicians called a female vocalist a 'canary,' lending the name an additional association with voice, performance, and the bright lights of the stage. For a child named Canary, the name is a gift of pure singularity — no classroom will have two. Its three syllables have a bright, lilting quality that suits a name associated with song, and it occupies a genuinely unusual position: unmistakably English in sound, globally recognizable in reference, and unlike anything else in the naming canon.