Ott

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: From the medieval personal name Ode, reinforced by Old Norse Oda/Odda and Continental Germanic Odo/Otto; all from names beginning with ord ‘point of a weapon’ or od ‘wealth’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Ott is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 2.6K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 2.6K
  • ATAustria≈1 in 6.3K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈210,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
428 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Liechtenstein, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

OttLatin(measured from records)
오트Hangul(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From the medieval personal name Ode, reinforced by Old Norse Oda/Odda and Continental Germanic Odo/Otto; all from names beginning with ord ‘point of a weapon’ or od ‘wealth’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

How Ott is read(measured from records)

Ott is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English67%

    From the medieval personal name Ode, reinforced by Old Norse Oda/Odda and Continental Germanic Odo/Otto; all from names beginning with ord ‘point of a weapon’ or od ‘wealth’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

    Initialism of over the top.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • German16%

    Apokopierte Form zu Rufname Otto < germ. *auda-, ahd. ōt, as. ōd 'Besitz, Reichtum'; Bearer count: 13.904.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

    patronymisch zu Rufname Otto; Belege u.a. Ott 1390. Vorkommen: Schweiz Ott(o) 1624+143, Otte(n) 18+25; Österreich Ott(o) 930+239, Otte(n) 73+12.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ott counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Ott is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈210,000 est.≈1 in 6.7K—Ott7
DE Germany#124≈31,000 est.≈1 in 2.6K—Ott207
US United States—25,7381 in 13K26KOtt428
FR France—≈3,600 est.≈1 in 19K483—5
GB United Kingdom—≈3,500 est.≈1 in 19K352Ott94
CH Switzerland#1423,2341 in 2.6K3.2KOtt79
AT Austria#395≈1,400 est.≈1 in 6.3K—Ott78
LI Liechtenstein—≈15 est.≈1 in 2.5K63—16

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Statistik Liechtenstein — Familiennamenstatistik (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Ott is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Switzerland, Canada

    Also written Òtt, Ớtt

  • Russian surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, United States

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish

    Also written Отт, Otth

61 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Ott is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In French, Germanique; variante du groupe d’Aldo, sens « ancien ».

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • In cdo, to boil, to stew, to roast, to conk, to stew, to leave things to simmer over the fire

    as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Fred Ott, b. 1860Eugen Ott, b. 1889Mel Ott, b. 1909Angelika Ott, b. 1942Niko Ott, b. 1945Carlos Ott, b. 1946Mirjam Ott, b. 1972Ramin Ott, b. 1986Alice Sara Ott, b. 1988Manuel Ott, b. 1992
  • Fred Ottb. 1860USAmerican scientist and film actor (1860–1934)
  • Eugen Ottb. 1889DEGerman general, ambassador (1889-1977)
  • Mel Ottb. 1909USAmerican baseball player (1909–1958)
  • Angelika Ottb. 1942ATAustrian actress
  • Niko Ottb. 1945DEGerman rower
  • Carlos Ottb. 1946UYUruguayan-Canadian architect (born 1946)
  • Mirjam Ottb. 1972CHSwiss curler (born 1972)
  • Ramin Ottb. 1986USAmerican Samoan soccer player
  • Alice Sara Ottb. 1988DEGerman classical pianist
  • Manuel Ottb. 1992DEGerman-Filipino association football player

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 50 sources across 26 countries.

Official registers attesting Ott
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201026K#1,373
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200025K#1,265
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202025K#1,390
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20243.2K#230
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1961674—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1951641—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1941534—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1971488—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1981486—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991483—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1931442—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1921429—

Reference works 8

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Ott mean, and where does it come from?
From the medieval personal name Ode, reinforced by Old Norse Oda/Odda and Continental Germanic Odo/Otto; all from names beginning with ord ‘point of a weapon’ or od ‘wealth’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
What are other forms of the name Ott?
In the etymology graph, Oddo, Odo and Audo are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Ott have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 207 thousand people named Ott in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ott.
How common is the name Ott?
In the United States, the national register counted 25,738 people named Ott in 2010, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
How common is Ott compared with other names?
In Germany, Ott is the 124th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Ott?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ott

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ott” — the 124th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ott parses inside a full name →