Kotz

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Middle High German, Middle Low German kotze (or Polish koc) ‘blanket’, ‘horsecloth’, ‘coarse woolen cloth or garment’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such cloth or a nickname

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈkɑts/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

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

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 61K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 276K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 52K

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)

≈6,500 people, est.

Sources
224 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 52K (inferred from the name graph)

South Africa, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

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 Middle High German, Middle Low German kotze (or Polish koc) ‘blanket’, ‘horsecloth’, ‘coarse woolen cloth or garment’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such cloth or a nickname for a poorly dressed person.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kotz 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 Kotz is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈6,500 est.≈1 in 215K—Kotz2
DE Germany—≈1,300 est.≈1 in 61K—Kotz77
US United States—1,2041 in 276K1.2KKotz224
ZA South Africa—≈1,100 est.≈1 in 52K—Kotz10
BR Brazil—7441 in 285K744—2
AT Austria—≈110 est.≈1 in 78K—Kotz19
JO Jordan—≈76 est.≈1 in 143K—Kotz1
BZ Belize—≈6 est.≈1 in 70K—Kotz1
AG Antigua & Barbuda#714———Kotz1

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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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)

Kotz is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Argentina, Paraguay

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Kötz

  • Polish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Kötz

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Kőtz, Kötz

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, South Africa, Canada

    Also written Kötz

  • Swedish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, South Africa, United States

    Languages: Swedish, Danish

    Also written Kötz

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Also written Kötz

38 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)

Kotz is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, status name for a cottager or day laborer, from German Kotsasse, Kotsate, literally ‘inhabitant of a cottage’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, nickname from the Slavic loanword koc ‘untidy hair’, ‘hair of com’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, from a pet form of the personal name Konrad.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, Berufsname zu mhd. kotze 'grobes Wollzeug; Decke/Kleid daraus' (Hersteller/Benutzer); evtl. Patronym zu Konrad. Bearer count: 655+17.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In pdc, vomit, puke

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

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)

1850190019502000Richard Kotz, b. 1886John Kotz, b. 1919Samuel Kotz, b. 1930Nick Kotz, b. 1932Rainer Kotz, b. 1941David Michael Kotz, b. 1943Dorothy Kotz, b. 1944Elderbrook, b. 1992
  • Richard Kotzb. 1886USGerman General and Knight's Cross recipients (1886–1960)
  • John Kotzb. 1919USAmerican basketball player (1919–1999)
  • Samuel Kotzb. 1930USAmerican statistician (1930-2010)
  • Nick Kotzb. 1932USAmerican journalist
  • Rainer Kotzb. 1941ATAustrian orthopedic surgeon
  • David Michael Kotzb. 1943USAmerican economist
  • Dorothy Kotzb. 1944AUAustralian politician (1944- )
  • Elderbrookb. 1992GBnot in their usual nameBritish musician
  • David KotzUScomputer science researcher; Ph.D. Duke University 1991
  • Sonja KotzDEGerman neuroscientist, Professor of Neuropsychology and Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Maastricht University

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).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Kotz,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 19 sources across 9 countries.

Official registers attesting Kotz
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.2K#21,648
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.2K#20,565
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.1K#22,987
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—744#11,963
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

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 Kotz mean, and where does it come from?
from Middle High German, Middle Low German kotze (or Polish koc) ‘blanket’, ‘horsecloth’, ‘coarse woolen cloth or garment’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such cloth or a nickname… Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
How do you pronounce Kotz?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑts/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Kotz have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 6.5 thousand people named Kotz in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kotz.
How common is the name Kotz?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,204 people named Kotz in 2010, about 1 in 276 thousand residents.
How common is Kotz compared with other names?
In Antigua & Barbuda, Kotz is the 714th most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kotz?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Kotz” — the 714th most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kotz parses inside a full name →