Bice
A surname of mixed and uncertain origins, most likely from a Welsh patronymic form and sometimes linked to Cornish place-name roots.
The #5,117 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 45,132 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Bice is not securely pinned to a single origin. One 19th-century source treats it as a form connected with Welsh names in ap-, especially as a variant of Rice/Rhys; another suggests a Cornish explanation, possibly from a place-name meaning something like “village on the hill” or “little enclosure.” A further Cornish note also links Bice with a root related to an enclosure or ditch, but this is speculative rather than certain.
History
The name appears in medieval and later English records in several spellings, and it has been explained by different scholars in different ways. In the United States it is often associated with the wider Welsh surname cluster around Rice, though that may not account for every family. Because the historical evidence is thin and conflicting, modern bearers may come from more than one unrelated line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A single surname entry in 19th-century scholarship linked Bice both to Welsh ap-forms and to Cornish place-name roots, showing how uncertain surname etymology can be.
From the historical record
“Cf. the Welsh name Bew, from Ap-hugh. BICE. See Bose. BICTON. From a manor in St. Eve held by the family in Norman times. {Gilbert.) The name, if of Cornish origiu, may mean village on the hill, or the little enclosure. BIDDICK. From bidn, vidn-icky the meadow place. Fiddick, Fidick, Viddicks, are different…”
— Patronymica Cornu-Britannica; or, the etymology of Cornish surnames