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Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!
You asked for information about the name "Gareth". Here is what we know.
"Gareth" is the name of a character from Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur," which was written in the mid-1400's. The first example we have of someone named "Gareth" is from England in 1593 [1]. If you wanted to have an English name from the late 1500's, "Gareth" would be an appropriate choice.
If you want an earlier name, you might consider "Garth", a plausible English name which could have been used around the 11th or 12th centuries. We don't have any actual examples of it, but there is a fairly common Norse name, "Gar{dh}r" (where {dh} represents the Norse letter "edh", pronounced like the 'th" in "this") [2]. It's not unlikely that "Gar{dh}r" could have been adopted into English as "Garth."
I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Pedro de Alcazar.
For the Academy,
Arval Benicoeur
References
[1] Withycombe, E.G., The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3rd
ed. (Oxford University Press).
[2] Fellows Jensen, Gillian, Scandinavian Personal Names in Lincolnshire
and Yorkshire (Copenhagen: 1968).