Berneice
Feminine · “bringer of victory”
Berneice puts the e before the i and nothing happens. Both spellings give the same two syllables in English, and the difference on the page is a record of how many syllables a family thought the name had — because in Greek it had four, and English has been losing them ever since.
How old is the name Berneice?
Berneice first appears in US birth records in 1891 — 134 years ago. The typical Berneice alive today was born around 1923, making them about 102 years old. About 500 people named Berneice are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Berneice most popular?
Berneice peaked in 1918, reaching #574 nationally. See the whole 1918 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Berenike to Berneice
The story of Berneice
The Greek original has four syllables and each one is sounded. Latin kept them. French compressed the name to three, English to two, and the spellings in the American record are a snapshot of that process caught halfway: Berenice writes four, Bernice writes two, and Berneice sits between them with an extra vowel that suggests a syllable it does not deliver. Families using the longer spellings often did say more of the name, particularly in the nineteenth century, so the letters are not simply decorative — they are a fossil of a pronunciation that has gone.
Meaning
bringer of victory
The Greek compound joins a verb meaning to bring to the word for victory. Every spelling in this family carries it; none of the vowel arrangements affects the sense.
How the name formed
- Berenike
- Bernice
- Berneice
Related forms: Berenike · Berenice · Berenice
Pronouncing Berneice
bur-NEESS
Two syllables with the weight at the back. The extra e changes nothing; Bernice and Berneice are said identically in America.
Nicknames for Berneice
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1891
- Most girls named
- 1918154 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #574reached in 1918
- Change vs 1970
- 0.0%5 in 1976, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Berneice in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Berenike in Greek — transliteration
- Berenice in Italian — related form
- Berenice in French — related form
Berneices among us
people named Berneice are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Berneice sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is said correctly at sight by anyone who has met the commoner spelling.
- The meaning is settled, positive and easy to explain.
- It has a documented history running from Macedonian Greek to the present.
- Bernice is the commoner spelling and will be written instead.
- The extra vowel suggests a syllable that nobody says.
- It reads as a name of the early twentieth century.
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Berneice
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Berneices are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Berneice are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Berneice in 2025?
- Berneice is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Berneice with classmates?
- Berneice will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Berneice? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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