Ota

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Japanese: Rōmaji transcription of おた

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • JPJapan≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 168K
  • NGNigeria≈1 in 51K

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.

Japan (inferred from the name graph)

≈90,000 people, est.

Sources
151 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)

Japan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Initialism of over-the-air.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Ota is read(measured from records)

Ota is one spelling over 3 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.

  • Japanese47%

    Rōmaji transcription of おた

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

  • English29%

    Initialism of over-the-air.

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

  • Portuguese8.6%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Ota in Portuguese.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Ota 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 Ota is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
JP Japan#319≈90,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Ota150
CN China—≈6,800 est.≈1 in 204K—Ota10
NG Nigeria—≈4,200 est.≈1 in 51K—Ota20
US United States—1,9841 in 168K2KOta151
BR Brazil—1,8811 in 113K1.9K—1
CZ Czechia—≈190 est.≈1 in 55K4.3K——
FI Finland—431 in 130K43—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: MVČR — living population register 2017; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Ota is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Czech surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Nigeria, United States

    Also written Oťa, Ôta

  • English surname17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Otä, Otà, Òtą, Oţa, Ōtā

  • Portuguese surname17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Peru, Argentina

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Otá, Otã, Őtá, Ötã, Óta

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Oța, Otā, Ōta, Ôta

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Ötä, Ötă, Ōta

  • Arabic surname103 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Egypt, Syria, United States, Saudi Arabia

    Also written Otą, Öta, Ötä, Õtã, Ôtá

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Congo - Kinshasa

    Also written Ôta, Ōta, Otà

  • Indonesian surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Malaysia, India

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Ötã, Òta, Òťã, Őťã, Ôta

44 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)

Ota is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Lisboa

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • Gayatri (N); Sarayii (N)

    as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names

  • In lua, V. When used with munya(2) as obj. it means to bask or warm one’s self in the sunshine. When used with kahia(8) as obj., it means to warm one’s self by the fire.

    as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language

  • In Russian, "father."

    as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)

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)

1400160018002000Kobayakawa Hidekane, b. 1567Tomoko Ohta, b. 1933Akemi Ōta, b. 1938Hikari Ōta, b. 1965ZUN, b. 1977Yoshiaki Ota, b. 1983Yūki Ōta, b. 1985Kosuke Ota, b. 1987Nanami Ohta, b. 1993Aika Ōta, b. 1994
  • Kobayakawa Hidekaneb. 1567JPnot in their usual nameJapanese samurai
  • Tomoko Ohtab. 1933JPnot in their usual nameJapanese biologist
  • Akemi Ōtab. 1938JPJapanese animator (1938-)
  • Hikari Ōtab. 1965JPJapanese owarai talent, television presenter and writer (1965-)
  • ZUNb. 1977JPnot in their usual nameJapanese video game developer and composer
  • Yoshiaki Otab. 1983JPJapanese association football player
  • Yūki Ōtab. 1985JPJapanese foil fencer
  • Kosuke Otab. 1987JPJapanese association football player (born 1987)
  • Nanami Ohtab. 1993JPnot in their usual nameJapanese actress
  • Aika Ōtab. 1994JPJapanese female singer. Member of HKT48. Former member of AKB48

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 Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 41 sources across 18 countries.

Official registers attesting Ota
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002K#13,641
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102K#14,920
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.9K#5,176
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.7K#16,112
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—43#26,098
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—20#54,067
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 7

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 Ota come from?
Initialism of over-the-air. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Ota?
A machine transcription gives /ˈoʊtə/ (IPA) for Japanese.
What does the name Ota mean?
In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of おた
What are other forms of the name Ota?
In the etymology graph, Oddo, Odo and Audo are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Ota have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 90 thousand people named Ota in Japan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ota.
How common is the name Ota?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,984 people named Ota in 2010, about 1 in 168 thousand residents.
How common is Ota compared with other names?
In Japan, Ota is the 319th most common surname of 142,159 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Ota?

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

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, “Ota” — the 319th most common surname in Japan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ota parses inside a full name →