Burnice
A feminine name of English origin meaning "little burner or heater".
Name Census estimates that about 599 living Americans carry the first name Burnice. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 54.4% of registrations being female. The average person named Burnice today is around 76 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Burnice births was 1922 (105 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Burnice. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Burnice sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
- • The typical person named Burnice is about 76 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Burnices were born before 1960.
People living today
599
~ 1 in 572,211 Americans
Peak year
1922
105 babies that year
Average age
76
years old
1986 SSA rank
#6,084
Tracked since 1893
Census
Burnice in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 604 people with the first name Burnice, which placed it at #17,987 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#17,987
National first-name rank
People counted
604
604 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
57.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Burnice
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Burnice is White at 57.9%. The next largest groups are Black (35.3%) and Two or More Races (3.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Burnice described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Burnice at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White57.9% · 350
- Black or African American35.3% · 213
- Two or more races3.1% · 19
- Hispanic or Latino2.0% · 12
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 8
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.3% · 2
Gender
Gender distribution for Burnice
Burnice is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,926 total registrations, 1,333 (45.6%) were male and 1,593 (54.4%) were female.
Burnice as a male name
- Ranked #6,863 in 1986
- 5 male births in 1986
- Peak: 1924 (44 births)
Burnice as a female name
- Ranked #6,084 in 1964
- 6 female births in 1964
- Peak: 1925 (67 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Burnice on both sides of the split. Of the 596 people counted with this name, 348 were male (58.4%) and 248 were female (41.6%).
Popularity
Burnice: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Burnice from the 1890s through to the 1980s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 892 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Burnice by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Burnice during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Burnices live
The SSA's state-level files cover 11 states and territories. North Carolina, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Burnice, while Florida, Missouri, Arkansas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 59 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Burnice
The given name Burnice has its origins in the Germanic languages, specifically from the Old English and Old Saxon dialects spoken in what is now parts of England and northern Germany during the early medieval period around the 6th to 10th centuries AD. It is derived from the Germanic root words "burn" meaning "stream" or "brook" and "ric" meaning "powerful" or "ruler."
The name likely emerged as a compound name denoting someone who lived near a powerful stream or brook, or perhaps a ruler of a region with abundant water sources. Similar spellings from that era include Burnric, Byrnric, and Burnrich. While the exact origins are uncertain, the name was likely first used as a given name for boys in Anglo-Saxon England and the surrounding areas where Old English and Old Saxon were spoken.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Burnice appears in the Domesday Book, a medieval census commissioned in 1086 by William the Conqueror. A landowner named Burnice is listed as holding estates in the county of Lincolnshire. Another early reference is found in the Cartulary of Bury St. Edmunds, a 12th-century manuscript from Suffolk, England, which mentions a monk named Burnice.
Notable historical figures who bore the name Burnice include Burnice de Belleau, a 13th-century French knight who fought in the Seventh Crusade under Louis IX. Records also show a Burnice von Stetten, a 14th-century German nobleman and landowner from the region of Swabia. In the 15th century, a Burnice Willoughby is recorded as a member of the English gentry and landowner in Nottinghamshire.
During the Renaissance period, a Burnice Cavalcanti was a renowned Italian poet and philosopher who lived in Florence in the early 16th century. He was a contemporary of Michelangelo and part of the intellectual circles of the time. Another notable figure was Burnice van Dijk, a 17th-century Dutch explorer and navigator who made voyages to the East Indies and helped map parts of the Indonesian archipelago.
People
Burnice + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Burnice as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Burnice: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Burnice?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 599 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Burnice going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 572,211 US residents.
Is Burnice a common name?
We classify Burnice as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,926 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Burnice most popular?
The single biggest year for Burnice was 1922, when 105 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Burnice is about 76 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Burnice in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 604 people with the name Burnice, or 0.20 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17,987 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Burnice in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Burnice?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Burnice on both sides of the split. Of the 596 people counted with this name, 348 were male (58.4%) and 248 were female (41.6%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Burnice?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Burnice is White at 57.9%. The next largest groups are Black (35.3%) and Two or More Races (3.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Burnice most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Burnice in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.9% (350 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Burnice in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Burnice a female name?
Yes, 54.4% of people registered as Burnice in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Burnice still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Burnice in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Burnice can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Burnice?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.