Variant of Aubrey, from Germanic Alberic meaning "elf ruler" or "supernatural power."
Aubry is a streamlined spelling of Aubrey, a name with deep Germanic and Norman French roots. The original Old High German form was 'Alberich,' composed of 'alb' (elf, supernatural being) and 'ric' (ruler, power), making the full meaning something like 'ruler of the supernatural world' or 'elf king.' This magical etymology entered French as Auberi and crossed to England with the Normans after 1066, where it was primarily a masculine name in the medieval period, borne by noble and churchly figures alike.
Alberich appears in Norse mythology as the dwarf guardian of treasure in the Nibelungenlied, a connection that Richard Wagner amplified in his Ring Cycle opera, giving the name-root a dramatic, shadowy undertone in German cultural memory. In medieval English use, Aubrey was a respectable masculine name; Geoffrey of Monmouth's histories and various chronicles record noble Aubreys across the Anglo-Norman world. By the seventeenth century the name was carried by John Aubrey (1626–1697), the English biographer and antiquary whose 'Brief Lives' pioneered the gossipy, humanizing style of biographical writing.
The twentieth century saw Aubrey shift toward feminine use in the English-speaking world, a gender migration accelerated by its soft sound and the success of the song 'Aubrey' by Bread in 1973. The spelling Aubry — dropping the final 'e' — gives the name a slightly sharper, more contemporary edge while preserving its sound. Today Aubry sits comfortably as a gender-flexible name with a genuinely ancient pedigree, carrying fairy-tale resonance and aristocratic history in its compact two syllables.