Origin and Meaning
It has a double etymology : the first element Au-d- in both cases is ultimately from the Anglo-Saxon ethel (also spelled æðel) meaning "noble".
The second element -d-rey can be rǣd, rēd "advice, opinion, happiness", so Æthelred > Aldred, Eldred in Middle-English is a masculine name. The phonetical shift Aldred > Audrey is typical for the Anglo-Norman language, a Langue d'oïl, close related to Old French.
The second element can be thruth (also spelled þryð) "strength", because Saint Æthelthrut(h) is called Saint Audrey too.
Read more about this topic: Audrey
Famous quotes containing the words origin and, origin and/or meaning:
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Philosophers have actually devoted themselves, in the main, neither to perceiving the world, nor to spinning webs of conceptual theory, but to interpreting the meaning of the civilizations which they have represented, and to attempting the interpretation of whatever minds in the universe, human or divine, they believed to be real.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)