Otto

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in German: from a Germanic short form with weak ending; name stem often linked to *aud- 'wealth'

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

Otto is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • SESweden1 in 627(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 736
  • DKDenmark1 in 1.1K

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈110,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
437 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 380 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

OttoLatin(measured from records)
오토Hangul(measured from records)

Locally spelled Ottó in HU Hungary.

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)

from a Germanic short form with weak ending; name stem often linked to *aud- 'wealth'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

How Otto is read(measured from records)

Otto is one spelling over 4 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.

  • English36%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otto in English.

  • German35%

    from a Germanic short form with weak ending; name stem often linked to *aud- 'wealth'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    from the Germanic given name Otto, from the stem *aud- 'wealth, property'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    a male given name, feminine equivalent Oda, Odilia, Ottilie, Uta, or Ute; variant form Udo

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

  • Finnish11%

    taking (act or action of taking)

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

  • Spanish11%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Otto in Spanish.

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.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Otto, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Otto 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 Otto is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#180≈110,000 est.≈1 in 736—Otto227
SE Sweden#36316,2661 in 62716KOtto91
US United States—14,7181 in 23K23KOtto437
FI Finland#51714,6681 in 38030KOtto45
BR Brazil—8,3441 in 25K8.3K—5
HU Hungary#4577,3281 in 1.3K7.3KOttó60
DK Denmark#2435,1671 in 1.1K5.2KOtto120

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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)

Otto is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Argentina, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Ötto, Ottó, Ottö, Öttö, Óttó

  • Finnish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, United States, Latvia, Estonia

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Õttõ, Ottó

  • Russian surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Czechia, Ukraine, Slovakia

    Languages: Russian, Czech, Ukrainian

    Also written Отто, Ottó, Оттон

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Ottó, Ott-O

  • a separate given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Norway, Ecuador, Sweden

    Also written Ottó, Ốtto

  • Indonesian given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Philippines, Netherlands

    Also written Ottó

92 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)

Otto 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.

  • Short form of any of the Germanic male names formed with ot- ‘prosperity’; a royal and imperial name from an early date.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • Originally a short form of any of the OWEN Ottoline ° French diminutive of Ottilie, a variant of Odile. The name acquired some currency in the English-speaking world in the early 20th century, partly due to the influence of the literary hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938).

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

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)

500100015002000Otto I, b. 912Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor, b. 1175Ludwig II of Bavaria, b. 1845Otto Hahn, b. 1879Otto Stern, b. 1888Otto Dix, b. 1891Otto Preminger, b. 1905Adolf Eichmann, b. 1906Otto Rehhagel, b. 1938Charlie Puth, b. 1991
  • Otto Ib. 912DEHoly Roman Emperor from 962 to 973
  • Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperorb. 1175DEHoly Roman Emperor from 1209 to 1218
  • Ludwig II of Bavariab. 1845DEnot in their usual nameKing of Bavaria (1845–1886)
  • Otto Hahnb. 1879DEGerman chemist and physicist (1879-1968)
  • Otto Sternb. 1888USGerman-American physicist (1888–1969)
  • Otto Dixb. 1891DEGerman painter and printmaker (1891–1969)
  • Otto Premingerb. 1905USAustrian-American director, producer, and actor (1905–1986)
  • Adolf Eichmannb. 1906DEnot in their usual nameGerman-Austrian SS officer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust (1906–1962)
  • Otto Rehhagelb. 1938DEGerman footballer and manager
  • Charlie Puthb. 1991USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, songwriter, and record producer

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)

InformalHi Otto,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 123 sources across 54 countries.

Official registers attesting Otto
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201023K#1,587
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200022K#1,483
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202022K#1,595
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—527#810
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—155#9,096

Reference works 11

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 Otto mean, and where does it come from?
from a Germanic short form with weak ending; name stem often linked to *aud- 'wealth' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
Is Otto a male or female name?
Otto is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Otto have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 109 thousand people named Otto in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled otto.
Where is Otto most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Otto is densest in Finland — about 1 in 380 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How do you pronounce Otto?
A machine transcription gives /ɑtoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
What are other forms of the name Otto?
In the etymology graph, Odilon, Eudes and Rino are forms of the same name in other languages.
How common is the name Otto?
In Sweden, the national register counted 16,266 people named Otto, about 1 in 627 residents.
How common is Otto compared with other names?
In Germany, Otto is the 180th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Otto?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Otto” — the 180th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Otto parses inside a full name →