1383? · 1416? · 1427 · 1487 Named after Geralth, who founded itPomenované po Geralthovi, ktorý ich založil

The town is named after a man: Geralth, its first hereditary šoltýs — the settler-headman to whom a landlord granted the right to found a village on empty ground, in return for rent and a permanent office in his family. When exactly that happened is genuinely unclear, and this is a good place to see how history gets made: printed sources give 1383, 1416, 1427 and 1487 as the "first written mention", and the dictionary of Slovak settlements records the form Geralth in 1487. What is agreed is that the village was not yet being taxed in 1427, which points to a foundation early in the fifteenth century. People had lived on this spot far earlier — finds here reach back to the late Copper Age and the Bronze Age — but that is settlement, not a town.Mesto nesie meno po človeku: po Geralthovi, prvom dedičnom šoltýsovi — osadníckom richtárovi, ktorému zemepán dal právo založiť na prázdnej pôde dedinu, a to za plat a za trvalý úrad v rodine. Kedy presne sa to stalo, naozaj nevieme, a je to dobré miesto vidieť, ako sa dejiny robia: tlačené pramene uvádzajú ako „prvú písomnú zmienku“ roky 1383, 1416, 1427 aj 1487 a slovník obcí zaznamenáva podobu Geralth k roku 1487. Zhoda je v tom, že roku 1427 obec ešte nebola zdanená, čo ukazuje na založenie na začiatku 15. storočia. Ľudia na tomto mieste žili omnoho skôr — nálezy siahajú do konca eneolitu a do doby bronzovej —, ale to je osídlenie, nie mesto.