A female name. a reduction of the Old English Æthelthrythe, Etheldreda q.v., until the 17th C used as a pet-name for it, but now usually an independent name. St Etheldreda appears as St Audry in the early-16th-C life of St Life of St. Werburga, transl. 1573, and Audrey, Awdrie, Audrye, &c., appear as christian names from about the same period. No doubt the name was so pronounced long before it was recorded in writing. It was in the 16th C that the word tawdry arose, at first to describe the necklaces sold at St Etheldreda’s fair, and later for any cheap, garish goods. It was a name mainly used by the poorer classes, as is shown by Shakespeare’s use of it for the country wench in As You Like It. It has had a revival of favour in the present C and is probably commoner now than at any time in the past.

Occasionally AUDRY. A contraction of Etheldreda (‘noble counsellor’ or ‘noble threatener’). ‘St. Æthelfryth,’ remarks Charlotte Yonge, ‘was a queen who must have been a most uncomfortable wife, and who, finally, retired into a monastery, getting canonized as St. Etheldreda, and revered as St. Audrey. From the gewgaws sold at her fairs some derive the term tawdry.’ In C16-17 (witness Shakespeare’s Audrey), it was mainly a peasant girl’s name; in C18-20, it has improved its social status. (The suggestion that Audry is connected with French Andrée is a mistaken one: quite apart from the evidence stated above, such a theory presupposes a scribal error of an untenable magnitude.)

Or AUDRIE. A female name corrupted from Etheldreda, q. v.

Teutonic (masculine) - Noble counsellor.

A Teutonic name, meaning: Noble threatener.

A Teutonic name, meaning: Regal threatener.