Avery (surname)
Avery is an English surname of ambiguous or multiple origins. Some scholars believe that the name is of Anglo-Norman origin and derived from "Every" or "Evreux". The name may have arrived in England after the Norman Conquest. It is the name of a county in Normandy. It can also be found in the northern Spanish region of Navarra, where the House of Évreux was a ruling royal house from 1328 to 1441. At the time, the name's frequency was highest in Devon, followed by Sussex, Buckinghamshire, Rutland, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Warwickshire, Cornwall and Somerset.
Notable people with the surname include:Activism
- Byllye Avery, American health care activist
- Greg Avery, British animal rights activist
- Rachel Foster Avery, 19th century American suffragist
- Rosa Miller Avery, American abolitionist, political reformer, suffragist, writer; mother-in-law of Rachel Foster Avery
Law and politics
- Bill Avery, Nebraska politician and professor
- Brian Avery, former volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement
- Carlos Avery, 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
- Jack Avery, former Attorney General of Guam
- James Avery , Connecticut colonist, legislator, and military commander
- John Avery, physician and politician from Michigan
- John Keith Avery, former commissioner of the New South Wales police
- Oscar F. Avery, 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 , former governor of Kansas
- William Tecumsah Avery, former member of the United States House of Representatives
Literature
- Catharine Hitchcock Tilden Avery, 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
Performance and music
- Brad Avery, guitarist for the rock band Third Day
- Eric Avery, original bass player for Jane's Addiction
- Jack Avery, member of the American pop band Why Don't We
- James Avery , American actor known for playing "Uncle Phil" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
- James Avery , American and German pianist and conductor
- Margaret Avery, American singer and actress
- Patricia Avery, American silent film actress
- Phyllis Avery, American actress
- Shondrella Avery, American actress
- Stephen Morehouse Avery, screenwriter
- Val Avery, American 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
- William H. Avery, aeronautics engineer
Sports
- Albert Avery, English rugby league footballer
- Donnie Avery, American football player
- Genard Avery, American football player
- George Avery Young, English sportsman who played rugby and cricket
- Gordon George Avery, Australian track and field athlete
- James Avery Canadian baseball player
- Jim Avery, American football player
- John Avery, Canadian football player
- Ryan Avery, former lacrosse player
- Sean Avery, professional hockey player
- Steve Avery, former Major League Baseball pitcher
- William Avery, professional basketball player
- Xavier Avery, American baseball player
Visual arts
- Milton Avery, American Modernist painter
- Tex Avery, animator and director; creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
Other
- Bryan Avery, British architect
- Cyrus Avery, American highway commissioner
- Henry Every, 17th century pirate
- James Avery, 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
- Sewell Avery, U.S. businessman
- William Beilby Avery, philatelist
Fictional characters
- Jackson Avery, in the TV series Grey's Anatomy, or his grandfather, Harper Avery
- Avery, a minor Death Eater in the Harry Potter series
- 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 1983 novel The Color Purple
