Most of the early English members of the Avery family lived in the extreme southwest of the "tight little isle" of England and there they were very numerous*. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all of whom we now have any trace, lived in Cornwall and Devon counties. (map). Notice that these counties are directly north of that part of Brittany France in which is the ancestral town of Auray and that the distance between them is not great. Geography, heraldry, etymology, and history join hands and suggest, with common voice, that all the Averys of England and France were of the same stock.
The origin of the name Avery has been much discussed. According to the Patronymica Britannica it may come from any of the following:
Aviarius - A keeper of birds, as "avyries of sparrow-hawks, falcons, eagles and herons," mentioned in the Forest Charter.
Avery - A place where forage for the king's horses was kept, derived either from Avena, oats (Lat.), or Haver, oats (Anglo-Norman), or Aver, a northern Provincialism for a working horse.
Alberic - A German personal name, Latinized Albercicus, and softened in Norman times to Aubray.
It has been claimed that the name Avery came from Averum, derived the French avoir, to have or to hold. Avares is the name of a shepherd tribe of India. Avereland is the land of the rustics. The French Avarie, the Italian Averie, the Arabic Awar, and the Persian Augaria, all mean forced "commandeering of horses for government purposes," later applied to a tax on freight. Every Avery is at least equal to the average, both words having a common origin.
The name has been spelled in many ways, Avery, Avrey, Auvrey, Auerey, Auvray, Auery, Averie, Avyrie, Averye, Avaray, Avere, and possibly Auray and Aurey.The letters v and u were used interchangeably until the sixteenth century.
The initial E has also been used for A in nearly every form, as Every, Everie.
* In May, 1992, it was reported that there were 16,000,000 Averys