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_Beardsley
C.
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?