Avery (surname)

Avery is an English name ultimately derived from the Old English name Ælfred (Old English form of Alfred), which literally translates to 'elf-counsel'

The surname Avery may also be a derivation of the French place name Évreux.

Prevalence in England
In 2014, the name's frequency was highest in Devon (5.9 times the British average), followed by Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Rutland, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Warwickshire, Cornwall and Somerset.

Activism

 * Byllye Avery, American health care activist
 * Greg Avery, British animal rights activist
 * Rachel Foster Avery, 19th century American suffragist
 * Rosa Miller Avery (1830–1894), American abolitionist, political reformer, suffragist, writer; mother-in-law of Rachel Foster Avery
 * John Avery, member of the Loyal 9, member of the Sons of Liberty.

Law and politics

 * Bill Avery (born 1940), Nebraska politician and professor
 * Brian Avery (activist), former volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement
 * Carlos Avery (1868–1930), Minnesota newspaper publisher and politician
 * Ephraim Kingsbury Avery, Methodist minister accused of an 1832 murder
 * Isaac E. Avery, Colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War
 * James Avery (American colonist) (1620–1700), Connecticut colonist, legislator, and military commander
 * John Avery (politician), physician and politician from Michigan
 * John Keith Avery, former commissioner of the New South Wales police
 * Oscar F. Avery (1841–1924), Illinois state senator and lawyer
 * Steven Avery, American exonerated by DNA evidence for a crime
 * Waightstill Avery, North Carolina's first attorney general and a colonel during the American Revolutionary War
 * William H. Avery (politician) (1911–2009), former governor of Kansas
 * William Tecumsah Avery (1819–1880), former member of the United States House of Representatives

Art and media

 * Catharine Hitchcock Tilden Avery (1844–1911), American author, editor, educator
 * Fiona Avery, comic book and television writer
 * George Avery, American professor of German Studies
 * Gillian Avery, British children's writer and scholar
 * Harold Avery, British author of children's literature
 * Tom Avery, explorer, mountaineer, author, and motivational speaker
 * Valeen Tippetts Avery, American biographer and historian
 * Brad Avery, guitarist for the rock band Third Day
 * Charles Avery (actor) (1873–1926), American silent-film actor, film director, and screenwriter
 * Charles Avery (artist) (born 1973), Scottish artist from Oban
 * Charles Avery (pianist) (1892–1974), American blues and boogie-woogie pianist
 * Dylan Avery, American filmmaker
 * Eric Avery, original bass player for Jane's Addiction
 * Jack Avery, member of the American pop band Why Don't We
 * James Avery (1945–2013), American actor
 * James Avery (musician) (1937–2009), American and German pianist and conductor
 * Margaret Avery, American singer and actress
 * Patricia Avery (1902–1973), American silent film actress
 * Phyllis Avery, American actress
 * Shondrella Avery, American actress
 * Val Avery (1924–2009), American actor
 * Milton Avery, American Modernist painter
 * Tex Avery, animator and director; creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
 * Susanna Avery-Quash (born 1970), an English art historian
 * Richard Avery born 1947 Actor and director.

Science and engineering

 * Clarence W. Avery, engineer at Ford Motor Company
 * John Scales Avery, theoretical chemist and peace activist
 * Oswald Avery, physician and scientist
 * R. Stanton Avery, (1907–1997), American inventor
 * Raymond Avery, New Zealand pharmaceutical scientist, inventor, author and social entrepreneur
 * Robert Hanneman Avery, founder of the Avery Company, an American farm tractor, truck and automobile manufacturer.
 * William H. Avery (engineer), aeronautics engineer

Sports

 * Albert Avery, English rugby league footballer
 * Donnie Avery (born 1984), American football player
 * Genard Avery (born 1995), American football player
 * George Avery Young (1866–1900), English sportsman who played rugby and cricket
 * Gordon George Avery (1925–2006), Australian track and field athlete
 * James Avery (baseball) (born 1984) Canadian baseball player
 * Jim Avery (born 1944), American football player
 * John Avery (Canadian football), Canadian football player
 * Ryan Avery (lacrosse), former lacrosse player
 * Sean Avery (born April 10, 1980), Canadian professional hockey player
 * Steve Avery, former Major League Baseball pitcher
 * Tre Avery (born 1997), American football player
 * William Avery (basketball), professional basketball player
 * Xavier Avery (born 1990), American baseball player

Other

 * Bryan Avery, British architect
 * Clark Moulton Avery (1819–1864), Confederate colonel
 * Cyrus Avery, American highway commissioner
 * Henry Every (or Avery), 17th-century pirate
 * James Avery (Medal of Honor), (1825–1898) Union Navy seaman and recipient of the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War
 * Peter Avery, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge
 * R. Stanton Avery, founder of Avery Dennison Corporation and namesake of Caltech's Avery House
 * Samuel Putnam Avery, (1822–1904) American connoisseur and dealer in art
 * Sewell Avery, U.S. businessman
 * William Beilby Avery (1854–1908), philatelist
 * Justice Avery, multiple people

Fictional characters

 * Avery, a pure-blood wizarding family in the Harry Potter series
 * Jackson Avery, in the TV series Grey's Anatomy, or his grandfather, Harper Avery
 * Bree Avery, protagonist of the lonelygirl15 Internet video series
 * Rupert Avery, a main character in The Serpentwar Saga
 * Shug Avery, one of the main characters in the 1982 novel The Color Purple
 * Mr. Avery, a character in the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird
 * Alice Avery, a character in Virginia Woolf's short story 'A Woman's College from Outside'