I have always spelled the word with which I address sisters of my parents as Auntie. Of late I have noticed that just about everybody else around me seems to spell it as Aunty.
My ancestry is British but only two of my great grandparents were born there while the other six were born in South Australia.
I wondered whether the two variations in spelling were British vs American.
Can anyone enlighten me as to the origin of each?
Dictionary.com suggests the following which seemed to suggest that both are fine to use:
Word Origin and History for aunt-ie Expand
n.
1787, also aunty, familiar diminutive form of aunt. As a form of kindly address to an older woman to whom one is not related, originally in southern U.S., of elderly slave women.
Best Answer
As stated by Etymonline auntie is originally an AmE term and aunty was just a variant. Checking with Ngram both terms were used from the late 18th century both in British and American English:
Ngram Auntie BrE vs AmE
Ngram Aunty BrE vs AmE
Auntie(n.):
Suffix -ie a variant of y:
(Dictionary.reference.com)