Kotu
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kotu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.
- INIndia1 in 5M(measured from records)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 50K
- USUnited States≈1 in 15M
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.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 31 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 50K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kotu 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 50K | — | Kotu | 4 |
| IN India | 267 | 1 in 5M | 267 | Kotu | 31 |
| US United States | ≈22 est. | ≈1 in 15M | listed | Kotu | 27 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | — | — | 1 | — | — |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Kotu is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In men, stone, rock; a stick partly burnt, fire- brand. Kotu-wele, a house built of stone. Ko6td gbolela, brandish- ing a sword
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In Polish, dative singular of kot
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Esperanto, imperative of koti
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In szn, head louse
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Hausa, court
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, Coto. Munizio ta kotuak / danak ongi pagatuak, / galanki egiñ kastuak. Olea 270. Gustora asko ibilli oi da / gure kotuan sartuta, / baña bein larri asko omen zan / goardak arrapatuta . Ib. 250.
as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia
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.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 8 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 754 | #4,965 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 267 | #14,505 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 3 | #8,749 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- In which country does Kotu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 thousand people named Kotu in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kotu.
- How common is the name Kotu?
- In India, the national register counted 267 people named Kotu, about 1 in 5.0 million residents.
What do you want to know about Kotu?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kotuThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Kotu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.