Janice
- Pronunciation
- [Ja-nice]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Gift From God
- Origin
- Hebrew
About the Name Janice
Janice is a modern English elaboration of Jane — the feminine form of John, from the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious" or "gift from God." The -ice suffix was added in the twentieth century following the pattern of names like Bernice and Clarice, giving Jane a longer, more elaborate form suited to the era's taste for feminine names with flowing endings. Janice has no medieval or classical precedent; it is a thoroughly modern coinage that traded on Jane's established scriptural roots while presenting a fresher sound.
Janice first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1932 and climbed to a peak of #21 in 1951, riding the postwar wave of elaborated feminine names. It proved a long-lived choice: despite a steady decline after its peak, Janice remained in the top-1000 all the way to 2009, when it ranked #844 — a 77-year chart run. The name is now primarily associated with women born between the 1940s and early 1970s, and it carries the warm, specific generational identity that often attracts renewed interest once a name reaches grandparent status.
Janice has one of the most extensive variant families among mid-century elaborated names: recorded forms include Janessa, Janicia, Janiece, Janis, Janise, Jannis, Jenice, Jeniece, and Jenise — reflecting the many ways parents sought to personalise the same phonetic core.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Janice
US Popularity History (1932–2009)
Annual US births named Janice by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1951 with 15,959 girls named Janice (girl rank #21 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2009, ranked #844 for girls (331 US births). That's 823 places below its 1951 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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Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Janessa | Female | English | |
| Janicia | Variant Of Jane. | Female | English |
| Janiece | Variant Of Jane. | Female | English |
| Janis | Gift From God | Female | Hebrew |
| Janise | Variant Of Jane. | Female | English |
| Jannis | Variant Of Jane. | Female | English |
| Jenice | Variation Of Jenny Which Is A Diminutive Of Jane And Jennifer. | Female | English |
| Jeniece | Variation Of Jenny Which Is A Diminutive Of Jane And Jennifer. | Female | English |
| Jenise | Variation Of Jenny Which Is A Diminutive Of Jane And Jennifer. | Female | English |
Looking for names like Janice?
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 Janice to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Janice against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).