Boyce
Masculine · “Old French bois”
Boyce is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,518 boys against 58 girls since 1880.
English has three separate words for woodland and they come from three languages: wood is Germanic, forest is Latin and legal, and bois is French. Boyce is the Norman one, spelled with a c the way English handled French words it wanted to keep looking French.
How old is the name Boyce?
Boyce first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Boyce alive today was born around 1939, making them about 86 years old. About 2,300 people named Boyce are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Boyce most popular?
Boyce peaked in 1938, reaching #529 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 8,381 places below that high. See the whole 1938 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From bois to Boyce
The story of Boyce
Forest is worth separating from the other two words because it is not a botanical term at all. It comes from Latin forestis silva, the outside wood, meaning land outside the common law and subject to the king's own forest law. A royal forest in medieval England did not need trees; it needed a legal status and a court, and large stretches of open heath and farmland were legally forest. The word only came to mean dense trees later, by association. Wood is native Germanic and always meant what it means now. Bois is Norman French and entered English as a surname element rather than a common noun, which is why Boyce and du Bois are family names while wood is an ordinary word. Three languages, three histories, and only one of them ever meant a legal jurisdiction.
Meaning
Old French bois, wood
Boyce is a surname from Old French bois or the Norman form boys, a wood, given to someone who lived by one. The same word underlies the surnames Boys, Boise, Bosc and du Bois, and the city of Boise, Idaho. The final c spelling is an English convention for representing the French s sound. The American peak of the given name is 1938.
How the name formed
- bois
- Boys
- Boyce
Related forms: Bois · Boice
Pronouncing Boyce
BOYSS
One syllable. The final c is said s. Boyce, Boice and Boyse are homophones, and the city of Boise is said the same way by most Americans.
Nicknames for Boyce
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 1934121 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #529reached in 1938
- Change vs 2022
- +14.3%8 in 2025, from 7
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.
Boyce in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bois in French — related form
- Boice in English — spelling variant
Boyces among us
people named Boyce are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Boyce
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lesley test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Boyce's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lesley climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lesley's path sketches the road Boyce is walking now.
Boyce sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Boyce beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Boyce in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable with a clear, documented Norman origin.
- Bo is available as a short form and is a name on its own.
- The surname pattern keeps it in a fashionable category.
- The first three letters spell an English word.
- Boice and Boyse compete as spellings.
- The 1938 peak makes it a mid-century name.
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Boyce
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Boyces are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Boyce are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Boyce in 2025?
- Boyce ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Boyce?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Boyce — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Boyce with classmates?
- Boyce will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Boyce
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Boyce? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Boyce and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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