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[Opinions] Definitely masculine (m)
I've grown up knowing Aubrey was a male name. So I can't understand how it sounds feminine at all. Aubrey Beardsley was a very famous (male) artist / illustrator at the turn of the 20th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_BeardsleyC. Aubrey Smith, as an old man, was in just about every old Holloywood classic. If you've seen Hitchcock's "Rebecca," he played Col. Julyan, the kindly old police inspector who sympathises with Maxim de Winter at the inquest. http://www.imbd.com/name/nm08075801 If you know who this mustachioed actor with big, bushy eyebrows is, you could never in a million years describe him as feminine.Aubrey is derived from Alberic, a very masculine name. I just don't understand how it can be feminine. Auburn hair, perhaps? But men have auburn hair too. Can anyone explain where this idea comes from?
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from btn "Originally a masculine name, since the mid-1970s this has more frequently been given to girls."
Many of us were not around before the mid 1970s and certainly not at the turn of the 20th centry to witness one of two famous male Aubreys. Several of us have girlfriends or aquaintances that are Aubrey. Some seem to know a modern male Aubrey, but if you don't, the sound of the name is much more similar to Audrey than to Alberic. The -ey ending in general is mostly used with feminine names these days anyway.
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