Variant spelling of April, from Latin Aprilis, a month name possibly linked to the goddess Venus.
Apryl is a deliberate respelling of April, the month-name that has served as a given name since at least the early twentieth century. April itself comes from the Latin Aprilis, the fourth month of the Roman calendar, whose etymology has fascinated scholars for centuries. The most appealing theory connects it to the Latin aperire, to open — capturing the essential spirit of early spring when buds break open, days lengthen, and the earth announces its renewal.
An alternative theory links it to the Etruscan rendering of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, suggesting that the month was originally sacred to love and beauty. Either origin gives the name exceptional poetic substance. April entered the English given-name tradition during the flowering of calendar and season names in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when June, May, and Autumn were also being adopted with enthusiasm.
The month's associations — fresh starts, hope, the particular tenderness of early spring — made it an irresistible choice. S. Eliot's famous opening of The Waste Land — April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land — gave the name a more complex literary resonance, suggesting that beauty and pain often arrive together.
The Apryl spelling, with its Y in place of the I, belongs to a distinctly American tradition of orthographic individualism that flourished in the latter twentieth century. It signals a deliberate choice — this is not a careless misspelling but a statement of individuality, a way of wearing a familiar name with a personal signature. For the bearer, Apryl announces from the very first introduction that she was given something considered rather than default.