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Avi is a Hebrew name, short of Avraham (Abraham). It is pronounced AH-vee (with the stress on the first syllable, as opposed to ah-VEE, which is a regular Hebrew word meaning "my father").
The similarity between the two is not incidental. The name Avraham is explained in the bible as being "AV (father) + RAV (much, many) + HAMON (crowd) = Father of a great number of people".
Those of you who have studied the Old Testament know that this was the name given to AVRAM after God had made a covenant with him. His original name, AVRAM meant "AV (father) + RAM (high, dignified)".