Audre
Meaning
noble strength (respelling of Audrey); famously borne by poet and essayist Audre Lorde, who chose this spelling, liking the symmetry with 'Lorde'
The story
Audre is Audrey with the y left off, and the ancestry runs deep: Audrey descends from an Old English name meaning noble strength, borne by a seventh-century saint. But Audre, this exact spelling, belongs to one person first. Audre Lorde, born Audrey in New York in 1934, dropped the final letter as a child because she liked the look of the two matching e endings in Audre Lorde, an early act of self-definition from a writer who would build a career on them. She called herself 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,' and her essays and poems, gathered in books like Sister Outsider, became foundations of feminist thought. The name registered in US records for the first time in the 2020s: still genuinely rare, and carrying its own small lesson that a name can be authored, not just inherited.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Audre has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
78 people · the #49,053 first name in Brazil · median age 38
Among people named Audre living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Audre
People given the name Audre in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 2009. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Audre deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Audre truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Audre fits with your family’s names and surname.
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