Bryce
- Pronunciation
- [Bryce]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Son Of A Nobleman
- Origin
- Anglo
About the Name Bryce
Bryce is a Scottish surname descending from the Celtic personal name Brice, of disputed origin — possibly from a Celtic root meaning "speckled," or from Latin Brittius. The name has been used in Scotland and northern England for centuries. The name's most influential geographic anchor in American naming is probably Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah — named after Mormon settler Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded the area in the 1870s. The dramatic red-rock hoodoos of Bryce Canyon are among the most-photographed natural features in the American West.
Notable bearers include English politician James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922, British ambassador to the US 1907–1913 and author of The American Commonwealth, a foundational analysis of American government), American baseball player Bryce Harper (born 1992, MLB superstar and 2015 NL MVP), and various contemporary American actors and athletes.
Bryce's American climb is part of the broader surname-as-given-name trend of the late 20th century. The name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 1985 to the US top 100 boys' rank by 2002 and has held a top-150 range since. The name's appeal is its compact Scottish-American register — one short syllable, hard consonants, instantly readable, and tonal versatility across casual and formal registers. The name reads as both classically Celtic and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Bry and the rare Bryceman each occasionally appear; the alternate spelling Brice (the older Scottish form) has its own SSA tracking. There are no significant international variants since the name's first-name use is essentially Scottish-to-American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Bryce
US Popularity History (1998–2025)
Annual US births named Bryce by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 4,319 boys named Bryce (boy rank #92 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #357 for boys (919 US births). That's 265 places below its 2000 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 Bryce Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Bryce the strongest states are Vermont, Delaware, Pennsylvania.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #103 | 24 |
| 2 | Delaware | #126 | 86 |
| 3 | Pennsylvania | #132 | 1,034 |
| 4 | Maine | #137 | 52 |
| 5 | New Jersey | #139 | 689 |
| 6 | Maryland | #142 | 475 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | #144 | 58 |
| 8 | Rhode Island | #145 | 48 |
| 9 | New Hampshire | #152 | 81 |
| 10 | Connecticut | #158 | 228 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon | #400 | 87 |
| 2 | Utah | #386 | 120 |
| 3 | Oklahoma | #381 | 126 |
| 4 | Washington | #377 | 205 |
| 5 | Arizona | #339 | 247 |
| 6 | Iowa | #333 | 113 |
| 7 | Kansas | #332 | 67 |
| 8 | Colorado | #329 | 206 |
| 9 | Kentucky | #323 | 150 |
| 10 | California | #316 | 1,218 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Bryce in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brice | A Given Name Of Medieval Origin. | Male | English |
Famous People Named Bryce
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Bryce.
- Bryce Dallas Howard — Movie Actress (1981)
Looking for names like Bryce?
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 Bryce to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Bryce against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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