Ortu
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɑɔty/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ortu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Italy than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Danish Otto.
- FRFrance≈1 in 174K(inferred from the name graph)
- ITItaly≈1 in 27K
- BEBelgium1 in 260K
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.
- Italy (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 136 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,300 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Italy, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- DanishOtto(measured from records)
- Old HighGerman(inferred from the name graph)via Otto
- Proto-Germanic*audaz“wealth“wealth, riches”(inferred from the name graph)via Otto
Steps marked ◐ come from the entry for the form named above them, not from this name's own sources.
Borrowed from Danish Otto.
Sources 3
- Wiktionary
- Nordic Names
- Trask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ortu 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT Italy | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 27K | listed | Ortu | 35 |
| FR France | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 174K | 68 | Ortu | 136 |
| DE Germany | ≈59 est. | ≈1 in 1.4M | — | Ortu | 30 |
| US United States | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 5.8M | listed | Ortu | 61 |
| BE Belgium | 45 | 1 in 260K | 45 | Ortu | 4 |
| CH Switzerland | 24 | 1 in 350K | 24 | — | 2 |
| JM Jamaica | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 968K | — | Ortu | 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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; the xinhua-italian-manual register; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Ortu 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 Latin, ablative singular of ortus
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sc, vegetable garden
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Indonesian, parent(s)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Corsican, garden
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, kitchen garden; vegetable garden
as a wordTrask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
In Basque, "Libertar" Lar . "Manumitir" Ib. . "Manumiso, manumitido, ortua " Ib. . v. orratu.
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)
- Salvatore Ortu Carbonib. 1859ITItalian mathematician (1859-1939)
- Piero Ortub. 1946ITItalian politician (1946)
- Fulvio Ortub. 1960USPh.D. The University of Chicago 1996
- Francesco Ortub. 1977ITItalian karateka
- Eleonora Ortub. 1984ITresearcher
- Fabrizio OrtuGBresearcher
- Giuseppe Orturesearcher
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 16 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 79 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 68 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 64 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 55 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 55 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 45 | #28,256 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 32 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 30 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 24 | #32,062 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 24 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 9 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Ortu mean, and where does it come from?
- Borrowed from Danish Otto. Recorded by Wiktionary and Nordic Names and 1 other source.
- How do you pronounce Ortu?
- A machine transcription gives /ɑɔty/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Ortu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.3 thousand people named Ortu in Italy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ortu.
- How common is the name Ortu?
- In Belgium, the national register counted 45 people named Ortu in 2008, about 1 in 260 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Ortu?
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/ortuThe 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, “Ortu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.