Meaning & Origin
An English habitational surname from Old French for someone living near the woods.
Boyce is a boy's and girl's baby name of Old French origin, from the Old French bois (wood, forest), meaning 'from the woods' or 'wood dweller' — an English habitational surname for someone who lived near a forest, used as an American given name.
With over 5,510 recorded births, Boyce carries the deep green quality of Old French forest surnames. In American usage, it has the distinguished Southern dignity of a family surname worn as a first name. William D. Boyce (1858–1929), the American publisher who founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 after a chance encounter with an unknown Scout in London fog, gives the name its most unexpectedly wholesome heritage.