Audrey
The story
Audrey left a surprisingly shabby word behind. Medieval English pilgrims bought lace at the fair of Saint Audrey, and St Audrey's lace was eventually shortened to tawdry when the wares acquired a cheap reputation. The saint herself deserved better. Audrey was the familiar form of Æðelþryð, an Old English name built from elements for noble and strength, and the seventh-century abbess of Ely became one of medieval England's most admired holy women. Shakespeare later put an Audrey among the lively country characters of As You Like It. Centuries after that, Audrey Hepburn made the name look effortless in films and in her humanitarian work. Those lives give Audrey more range than its polished modern image suggests: an abbess, a rustic comic heroine, and a movie star all answer to it. The sound is soft, but the old meaning is not. Audrey has spent more than a thousand years proving that grace and strength were never opposites.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Audrey peaked in the 2010s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
2,311 people · the #4,632 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 90,909 · median age 37
Among people named Audrey living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 44 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Audrey deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Audrey 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 Audrey fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Names like Audrey · Nicknames for Audrey · Middle names for Audrey
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