The story
Genealogy websites offer three or four hypotheses about the surname; none is confirmed. (Ideas include possible cognation with packer or with Pickard; evidence for or against is not presented.) The automotive brand is from the surname, via the brothers James Ward Packard and William Doud Packard. The ghost town in Kentucky, is named after a certain Amelia Packard.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.