Motte
loc · Latin script
Meaning, in French: one who lived by a fortified stronghold, OF, ME motte (of apparently Gaul, origin, referring originally to a hillock or mound; see also Moat)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Motte is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Belgium than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 481K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium1 in 8K
- UYUruguay1 in 81K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Belgium (measured from records)
- Sources
- 207 (measured from records)
- 1 in 8.0K (inferred from the name graph)
1,464 people, 2008
Highest-authority source
Belgium
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Motté in BE Belgium.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Middle Englishmotte(measured from records)
- OldFrench(measured from records)
Person who lives by a fortified stronghold; from Middle English motte, via Old French.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Motte is read(measured from records)
Motte 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.
- French40%
one who lived by a fortified stronghold, OF, ME motte (of apparently Gaul, origin, referring originally to a hillock or mound; see also Moat). The surname may also be a habi¬ tation name from any of the places in France named with this word. Mudd, Mowat. Dims, (of i): Fr.: Mahoudeau. Ger.: Metze; Mechel (Hesse).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
motte (mound of earth)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Dutch6.4%
a raised earth mound, often topped with a wooden or stone structure and surrounded with a ditch; a motte
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Motte 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE Belgium | 1,464 | 1 in 8K | 1.5K | Motté | 32 |
| US United States | 691 | 1 in 481K | 807 | Motte | 207 |
| BR Brazil | 259 | 1 in 817K | 259 | — | — |
| AR Argentina | 82 | 1 in 555K | 82 | — | — |
| IN India | 81 | 1 in 16M | 81 | — | 6 |
| UY Uruguay | 42 | 1 in 81K | 42 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 40 | 1 in 210K | 40 | — | 4 |
| FI Finland | 11 | 1 in 507K | 11 | — | 1 |
1,464 people counted by Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register), 2008, counting the spelling motte. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Motte is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Person who lives by a fortified stronghold; from Middle English motte, via Old French.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
topographic name for someone who lived by a fortified stronghold. Old Erench, Middle English motte. The surname may also be a habitational name from any of the places in France named with this word.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, moth, any nocturnal butterfly
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)
- Benjamin Motteb. 1693British bookseller and publisher
- Charles Motteb. 1784FRFrench lithographer and printer
- Henri-Paul Motteb. 1846FRFrench painter (1846-1922)
- Eugène Motteb. 1860FRFrench politician
- Émile Motteb. 1860BEpainter (1860-1931)
- Bertrand Motteb. 1914FRFrench politician (1914–1980)
- Maxime Motteb. 1973FRFrench actor
- Jason Motteb. 1982USAmerican baseball relief pitcher
- Nathaniel Motteb. 1984USAmerican recording artist, record producer and film composer
- Regine Motteactress
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 33 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 1.5K | #794 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Noms de famille (family names) | — | 1.3K | #904 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 807 | #30,865 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 758 | #29,390 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 691 | #33,121 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 259 | #29,795 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 111 | #21,278 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 82 | — |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 81 | #32,752 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 42 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 40 | #22,077 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 11 | #44,100 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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
- Where does the name Motte come from?
- Person who lives by a fortified stronghold; from Middle English motte, via Old French. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What does the name Motte mean?
- In French, one who lived by a fortified stronghold, OF, ME motte (of apparently Gaul, origin, referring originally to a hillock or mound; see also Moat).
- In which country does Motte have the most bearers?
- In Belgium, the national register counted about 1.5 thousand people named Motte, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled motté.
- Where is Motte most common?
- Motte is densest in Belgium, where the national register counts about 1 in 8.0 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Motte?
- In Belgium, the national register counted 1,464 people named Motte in 2008, about 1 in 8.0 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Motte?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/motteThe 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, “Motte”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.