García (often written Garcia in US records) is a Spanish and Portuguese surname that began as a first name. In medieval Iberia, García was a common given name; children and descendants kept it as a family name—the classic “parent’s name” path, even when the -ez ending of names like Rodríguez is missing.
What García originally meant is honestly unsettled. Scholars have proposed Basque words for “young” or “bear,” and other theories exist; none is the settled classroom answer. So the safe family story is: your surname preserves a once-popular Iberian personal name. The deeper root of that personal name remains disputed, and Surname Means will not pretend otherwise.