# 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.

## Notable people with the name
### 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
* Alex Avery (born 1971), English actor

### 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'