Cleveland Evans: ‘Joyce’ an evolution of a name

Today is “Bloomsday” in Dublin, Ireland.

To celebrate the life of author James Joyce, fans follow the path through Dublin taken by the character Leopold Bloom in Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” which takes place on June 16, 1904.

Coincidentally, today also is the 71st birthday of American author Joyce Carol Oates. Oates has published more than 50 novels and 30 short-story collections since 1964. She’s one of the few contemporary writers who are admired by literary critics and the general public.

Joyce, the name these two authors share, is the modern English form of Joce. This was a Norman French version of Iodoc, which meant “lord” in the Celtic language of Brittany.

St. Iodoc was a Breton prince who gave up his royal title to become a hermit. Around A.D. 900, some of his relics were enshrined in England’s famous Winchester Cathedral. This made Joce and his name popular in medieval England. In Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” the Wife of Bath swears “by God and Saint Joce.”

The surname Joyce indicates one’s ancestor was named Joce in medieval Britain. The surname went to Ireland when a Norman noble from Wales, Thomas de Joice, married a daughter of the Prince of Thomond in southern Ireland around 1300. Thomas was probably James Joyce’s ancestor.

Meanwhile, back in England, some parents named daughters Joyce. It wasn’t unusual for girls to receive names of male saints like Philip or Benedict, especially if they were born on that saint’s day on the calendar.

Joyce died out as a male name in England around 1400. It continued to be used for girls and was one of the top 30 names for girls throughout the 1500s. This makes Joyce one of the first examples of a name changing from mostly male to mostly female. Perhaps Joyce’s similarity in sound to Joy made it seem “feminine” to parents even six centuries ago.

In the U.S., Joyce was a rare name until it slowly began to increase around 1890. Between 1930 and 1947, Joyce was one of the top 20 names for American girls. Its highest rank, No. 11, came in 1938, the year Joyce Carol Oates and more than 12,000 other Joyces were born.

Like most slow-rising names, Joyce fell off slowly. There were more than 300 Joyces born in 2008, ranking it No. 876.

Americans older than 50 probably best remember this name through Dr. Joyce Brothers. Brothers first became famous in 1955 as an expert on boxing on the television quiz show “The $64,000 Question.” She went on to have a successful career giving relationship advice on television and radio as the first “media psychologist.”

Americans in their 20s are probably most familiar with the name through Joyce Summers. Played by actress Kristine Sutherland, she was Buffy’s mother on the hit TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Single mother Joyce was a much better parent than most of the others on this teen-oriented program, and it was a blow to many fans when she suddenly died in Buffy’s fifth season.

Contact the writer:

cleveland.evans@bellevue.edu

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