Otaku

surname · Latin script

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

Otaku is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Morocco than in any other country. In English, recorded as One with an obsessive interest in something, particularly (originally derogatory) obsessive Japanese fans of anime or manga.

rarermore common
  • MAMorocco≈1 in 86K(inferred from the name graph)
  • COColombia≈1 in 769K
  • ITItaly≈1 in 959K

carrying the name, as Mondonomo estimates it from our sources: no national register counts it in these countries. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Morocco (inferred from the name graph)

≈420 people, est.

Sources
14 (measured from records)

Reference-verified

≈1 in 86K (inferred from the name graph)

Morocco, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Otaku is read(measured from records)

Otaku is one spelling over 6 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.

  • Spanish18%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otaku in Spanish.

  • French13%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otaku in French.

  • Arabic11%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otaku in Arabic.

  • English11%

    One with an obsessive interest in something, particularly (originally derogatory) obsessive Japanese fans of anime or manga.

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

  • Japanese9.8%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otaku in Japanese.

  • Portuguese5.1%

    weeb (one with an interest in something such as anime or manga)

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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

Otaku 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 Otaku is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MA Morocco≈420 est.≈1 in 86KOtaku2
ID Indonesia≈180 est.≈1 in 1.5MOtaku11
BR Brazil≈120 est.≈1 in 1.8MOtaku14
US United States≈66 est.≈1 in 5.1MOtaku9
IT Italy≈65 est.≈1 in 959KOtaku2
CO Colombia≈64 est.≈1 in 769KOtaku10
MY Malaysia≈33 est.≈1 in 989KOtaku3
CL Chile≈18 est.≈1 in 1MOtaku4

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.

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)

Otaku is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Japanese surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Japan, Philippines, Peru

    Also written Otakü

  • English surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Peru, United Kingdom

    Languages: English, Dutch

    Also written Otãkû

  • Lao surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Thailand

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Otakü, โอทาคิ, โอทาค

33 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)

Otaku is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Polish, otaku (person with an obsessive interest in something, particularly obsessive Japanese fans of anime or manga)

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

  • In Italian, otaku (one with an obsessive interest in something such as anime or manga)

    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.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Otaku under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Otaku mean?
In English, One with an obsessive interest in something, particularly (originally derogatory) obsessive Japanese fans of anime or manga.
In which country does Otaku have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 415 people named Otaku in Morocco, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled otaku.
How common is the name Otaku?
Mondonomo estimates about 420 people in Morocco have Otaku as their first surname, about 1 in 86 thousand residents. No national register counts it there; the figure is ours, calibrated against the registers that do.

What do you want to know about Otaku?

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

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, “Otaku”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Otaku parses inside a full name →