What does "50 [square] 17" mean on my glasses?

And the primary use the optician puts the numbers to is to place the optical center (OC) of the lenses correctly when they cut the lenses to the frames. The OC of each lens should be directly in front of the the pupil when you’re looking straight ahead; those frame measurements plus the measurement of the distance between your pupils (PD) gives the information needed to do this.
(Former optician’s lab technician.)