Joyce
- Pronunciation
- [Joyce]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Cheerful: Merry.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Joyce
Joyce is an English name derived from the medieval given name Josce or Jodocus, which came to England with Norman settlers and carried the sense of "merry" or "cheerful" — a quality reinforced by the modern English adjective that the name now closely echoes. The name was used for both sexes in the medieval period before settling firmly into the feminine column during the twentieth century.
Two figures have kept the name's intellectual profile high. Joyce Carol Oates is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, poet, and playwright whose enormous, restless output has placed her among the most prolific and most decorated writers in modern American letters. Dr. Joyce Brothers was an American psychologist, syndicated newspaper columnist, television and radio personality, and author who, beginning in the late 1950s, helped popularize psychology for a mass American audience — bringing the name into millions of living rooms across several decades.
Joyce first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1924 and climbed to its peak of #11 in 1937. Its staying power is remarkable: despite slipping steadily from that apex, the name held on in the top-1000 all the way to 2022, most recently ranked #987 that year — an unusually long chart life of nearly a century. Recorded variants include Joyceanne, Joycelyn, Joycelynn, and Loyce.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Joyce
US Popularity History (1924–2022)
Annual US births named Joyce by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1942 with 16,728 girls named Joyce (girl rank #13 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2022, ranked #987 for girls (268 US births). That's 974 places below its 1942 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Joyce Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Joyce the strongest states are Iowa, Kentucky, New Jersey.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iowa | #588 | 27 |
| 2 | Kentucky | #633 | 35 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #665 | 109 |
| 4 | Maryland | #683 | 43 |
| 5 | California | #723 | 441 |
| 6 | New York | #726 | 221 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | #730 | 36 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #753 | 39 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #784 | 28 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #798 | 24 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Joyce in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Joyce
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Joyce.
- Joyce Brothers was one of the most prominent psychologists and a television personality.
- Joyce Carol Oates is an acclaimed, award-winning American novelist, short story writer and poet.
Looking for names like Joyce?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Joyce to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Joyce against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).