Janice is the 20th-century English elaboration of Jane — from the Hebrew Yochanan ("God is gracious"). A top-50 US baby name from 1939 to 1953, peaking at #32 in 1947. Janice Litman-Goralnik (née Hosenstein) — the indelible recurring character on NBC's Friends (1994-2004) played by Maggie Wheeler; her catchphrase "OH... MY... GOD!" was named to TV Guide's list of the 100 greatest TV catchphrases. Janice Dickinson (born 1955) — claims to be the first supermodel; original judge on America's Next Top Model (2003-2005). Janice Rule (1931-2003) — American actress; Three Women (1977). Janice Voss (1956-2012) — American astronaut; flew on five Space Shuttle missions; one of the most-traveled female astronauts of NASA's pre-ISS era. Janice Mirikitani (1941-2021) — Japanese American poet laureate of San Francisco; Glide Memorial Church co-founder; survivor of the Rohwer internment camp during WWII**.
Featured throughout late-20th-century American culture.
Janice does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Janice reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.