Motz
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Either occupational name from a baker's term or nickname from motz 'mud, dirt' / mutzen, motzen 'be grumpy'; bearers 1021
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈmɑts/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Motz is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 32K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 141K
- ATAustria≈1 in 34K
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)
- Sources
- 281 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 32K (inferred from the name graph)
≈27,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is 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)
Either occupational name from a baker's term or nickname from motz 'mud, dirt' / mutzen, motzen 'be grumpy'; bearers 1021.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Motz 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Motz | 4 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Motz | 107 |
| US United States | — | 2,354 | 1 in 141K | 2.4K | Motz | 281 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Motz | 1 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 219K | — | Motz | 2 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Motz | 31 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 44 | 1 in 77K | 44 | — | — |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #766 | — | — | — | Motz | 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Motz 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.
1. (also Motz) nickname for a grubby, unkempt individual, or an obstinate one, from Swabian dialect motz ‘dirt’. 2. variant of Mautz. 3. short form of the personal name Matthaus (see Matthew).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, southern German for 'ram'; cf. MUT
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In quc, the Pleiades
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, short; ugly; bare
as a wordTrask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
In Basque, MOTZ ( BN-arb ap. Gte Erd 192 ) . (Fórmula usada para mandar cortar la baraja). v. EBA (s.v. ebaki ).
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Frank Motzb. 1869USAmerican baseball player
- Elsie Motz Lowdonb. 1882USAmerican painter (1882–1960)
- Roger Motzb. 1904BEBelgian politician (1904-1964)
- Walter Motzb. 1909DEGerman cross-country skier
- Lotte Motzb. 1922ATAustrian writer (1922-1997)
- Dick Motzb. 1940NZNew Zealand cricketer (1940-2007)
- J. Frederick Motzb. 1942USUnited States federal judge
- Diana Gribbon Motzb. 1943USAmerican judge
- Bill Motzb. 1964USAmerican screenwriter and producer
- Anna Motzb. 1964USpsychologist
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 20 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.4K | #11,781 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.4K | #13,042 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.3K | #12,925 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 44 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Motz mean, and where does it come from?
- Either occupational name from a baker's term or nickname from motz 'mud, dirt' / mutzen, motzen 'be grumpy'; bearers 1021. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- How do you pronounce Motz?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈmɑts/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Motz have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 27 thousand people named Motz in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled motz.
- How common is the name Motz?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,354 people named Motz in 2010, about 1 in 141 thousand residents.
- How common is Motz compared with other names?
- In Antigua & Barbuda, Motz is the 766th most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Motz?
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/motzThe 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, “Motz” — the 766th most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.