Hi, Jennifer,

My sister-in-law came up with the spelling for my oldest daughter’s name. We had decided on “Avery” but I wanted it to look like a girl’s name. As soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it. Our daughter’s name is: Aeverie. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone with that version and I kind of hope it doesn’t catch on, because we like being a bit unusual. But I thought you would appreciate it as much as I do.

Toni

Dear Toni,

I’m not as appreciative of that spelling as you are. I advise parents to use the most standard spelling of common names. Using a creative spelling of a common name puts a burden on the child to spell it out for people the rest of his/her life.

And that being said, I believe the standard spelling, AVERY, is extremely feminine! A-names are in style now for girls, and it has the Y/IE ending which is more identified with feminine names.

Yes, Avery is historically a male name. But so were Ashley, Whitney, Lindsay and even Lauren! I understand that there is a character named (Jackson) Avery on the TV show Grey’s Anatomy, but that’s the character’s surname. Avery (with its original spelling) is #13 in U.S. girl’s names according to the U.S. Social Security index. If you had used the original spelling, I don’t believe there would  have been any confusion on her gender.

Despite my opinion, though, I wish Aeverie well and I have added the name to our database as an alternate spelling of Avery.

Sincerely,
Jennifer