Where the Garcia name comes from

Garcia was a first name long before it was a surname, and a very common one in early medieval Iberia. Where that first name came from is still argued. Alfonso Irigoyen took it from the Basque adjective garzea, young, whose modern form is gaztea, while Ramon Menendez Pidal and Antonio Tovar looked instead at the Basque hartz, bear. What is not in doubt is the geography: the name is attested from the High Middle Ages on both sides of the Pyrenees, and it thrived in the Kingdom of Navarre before spreading into Castile and the rest of Spain.