Dutch and Low German form of Gerard, from Germanic ger (spear) and hard (brave/strong).
Gerrit is the Dutch and Low German form of Gerard, a name of Old High German origin composed of ger ('spear') and hard ('brave,' 'strong') — giving it the martial meaning 'brave with the spear' or 'strong as a spear.' The name entered Dutch usage through medieval Christian veneration of Saint Gerard, and it became one of the most common given names in the Netherlands and the Flemish-speaking regions of Belgium through the early modern period. In those cultures, Gerrit functioned as a name of solid, respectable middle-class and artisan families — straightforward, unpretentious, thoroughly Dutch.
The most famous bearer of the name is almost certainly Gerrit Dou (1613–1675), the Dutch Golden Age painter who was Rembrandt van Rijn's first and most devoted pupil. Dou developed the genre of fijnschilder (fine painting), producing exquisitely detailed small-scale works of extraordinary technical virtuosity. His influence on Dutch and Flemish painting was considerable, and his name became associated with meticulous craft.
Another important bearer was Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964), the Dutch architect and furniture designer whose Red and Blue Chair (1917) and Schröderhuis (1924) became canonical works of the De Stijl movement — objects of radical geometric beauty that changed how modernism thought about domestic space. In contemporary naming, Gerrit carries the appeal of authentic Dutch heritage combined with a sound that feels familiar to English-speaking ears without being a direct copy of Gerard or Garrett. It has the texture of a name that has been used by real people doing real things for centuries, without ever becoming fashionable enough to feel worn. Parents with Dutch ancestry often treasure it; parents simply seeking a strong, handsome, historically grounded name increasingly find it.