From Germanic elements 'magin' (strength) and 'hard' (brave), meaning strong and hardy.
Maynard derives from the Old Germanic name Maginhard, a compound of magin, meaning "strength" or "power," and hard, meaning "hardy" or "brave." The Normans brought the name to England after the Conquest of 1066, where it appeared in various spellings — Mainard, Menard, Maynard — before settling into relative obscurity as a given name and greater currency as a surname. As a first name, Maynard enjoyed modest but consistent use in the United States through the 19th and early 20th centuries, fitting neatly into the vogue for names that sounded substantial without being common.
The name's most memorable American cultural moment came through television: Maynard G. Krebs, played by Bob Denver on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis from 1959 to 1963, was one of the first beatniks portrayed on American television. Maynard — shaggy, philosophical, allergic to the word "work" — became a comic archetype for the counterculture brewing beneath the Eisenhower consensus.
The name, slightly square in sound, worked perfectly against type for a character who was anything but. Decades later, Maynard James Keenan, the singer and lyricist of the progressive metal band Tool, brought the name into an entirely different cultural register — intense, cerebral, uncompromising. These two bearers illustrate the name's curious range: it can sound like the name of a 1950s accountant or a visionary artist, depending entirely on context.
The economist John Maynard Keynes added intellectual weight; his theories shaped the 20th century's understanding of how economies function. Maynard today sits in that interesting zone of names that feel genuinely old-fashioned — not nostalgically charming yet, but getting there. For parents who enjoy names with a slightly eccentric, unironic solidity, it offers considerable character.