“Elf-ruler,” brought over by the Normans Well established
Meaning: roughly “elf-ruler.” Aubrey is the English form of the Norman French Auberi, from the Germanic Alberic (or Alberich): alb, “elf,” plus ric, “power” or “ruler.” The Normans carried it into England, where it stayed a man's name for centuries.12
In Yonge's 1863 index, Aubrey is listed as a man's name and glossed elf-ruler.
For most of its history Aubrey was a male name. Medieval England had several noblemen called Aubrey de Vere; the seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey and the Victorian illustrator Aubrey Beardsley were both men. In the United States it began to be given to girls around the early 1970s, a turn often linked to the 1972 Bread song “Aubrey” and to the pull of the already-popular Audrey.13
The crossover is one of the clearest in the data: you can see the exact swing in the Usage figures below, taken straight from the year-by-year counts by sex.
Popularity over time
A long, quiet male history, then a sharp female spike
2012 · 8,2138,2130
18802025
U.S. · 1880–2025 · counts of people issued a Social Security number, not a full count of births. Live series on the published page.
Aubrey ticked along modestly as a boys' name for decades, then climbed steeply once it became a girls' name from the 1970s on, peaking in the 2010s before easing back. The shape of the curve is the story of the crossover itself.
Usage & existence
How is Aubrey used, and by whom?
164,605
recorded use · U.S. since 1880
Fading
given less each year
~96% girls
gender usage
1880
first appears in the data
A name that switched sex. In this data, Aubrey was ~92% boys in 1910 and is ~96% girls today.
Recorded use, not living people. The total counts recorded uses in US SSA data since 1880, not living people. The striking thing here is the gender flip: the same name that was almost entirely male for its first century is now given almost entirely to girls. The dataset begins in 1880, so the figures are bounded by the data. The living figure above is an estimate built from these records and official life tables: how we estimate it.
First Earl of Oxford, one of several medieval English noblemen of the name.
JA
John Aubrey
1626–1697
English antiquarian and writer, best known for his Brief Lives.
AB
Aubrey Beardsley
1872–1898
English illustrator of the 1890s and a defining figure of Art Nouveau.
The honest verdict
Our call · subjective
A soft, settled crossover. The boys’-name century is a fact, not a problem; expect it to read fully feminine on a form today, and enjoy the history underneath.
How rare is your Aubrey?
See exactly how many share the name in your country and birth year, with real data.
Sources & how we verify ✓ 2+ independent · verified Jun 2026 · data refreshed Jun 2026
Meaning & etymology
Etymonline, “Aubrey”, from Old French Auberi, from Old High German Alberich, “ruler of elves;” notes its use for US girls from c. 1973, eclipsing its use for boys.
Charlotte M. Yonge, History of Christian Names (1863) public domain, lists Aubrey as “elf ruler” and marks it masculine.
Popularity data
US SSA · England & Wales ONS, SSN-issuance / registration counts in the dataset, not total births. The per-year-by-sex split drives the crossover figures.
Bearers
Historical (male) bearers: Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford (d. 1194); John Aubrey (1626–1697); Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898). Dates via Wikipedia / Wikidata structured data.
Meaning is Well established (Germanic Alberic, “elf-ruler”). The male-to-female shift is documented by modern references and, crucially, shown directly from the SSA per-year-by-sex data rather than asserted in a sentence. Public-domain and modern sources are cited for the etymology; the historical (male) bearers are referenced from public structured data.