Otto

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title: "Otto" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["danish-masculine-given-names", "dutch-masculine-given-names", "english-masculine-given-names", "estonian-masculine-given-names", "finnish-masculine-given-names", "german-masculine-given-names", "icelandic-masculine-given-names", "masculine-given-names", "norwegian-masculine-given-names", "swedish-masculine-given-names"] topic_path: "geography/netherlands" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox given name"]

Field	Value
name	Otto
image	Otto+von+bismarck.jpg
caption	Otto von Bismarck, one of the famous bearers of this name
pronunciation
gender	masculine
origin	German
related names	Otho, Otis
::

Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants Audo, Odo, Udo) of Germanic names beginning in aud-, an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".

The name is recorded from the 7th century (Odo, son of Uro, courtier of Sigebert III). It was the name of three 10th-century German kings, the first of whom was Otto I the Great, the first Holy Roman Emperor, founder of the Ottonian dynasty.

The Gothic form of the prefix was auda- (as in e.g. Audaþius), the Anglo-Saxon form was ead- (as in e.g. Eadmund), and the Old Norse form was auð-.

Due to Otto von Bismarck, the given name Otto was strongly associated with the German Empire in the later 19th century. It was comparatively frequently given in the United States (presumably in German American families) during the 1880s to 1890s, remaining in the top 100 most popular masculine given names in the US throughout 1880–1898, but its popularity decreased significantly after 1900 with increasing anti-German sentiment leading up to World War I; it fell below rank 200 in 1919, below rank 500 in 1947, and below rank 1000 in 1975. It re-entered the top-1000 most popular given names in the US in the 2010s, ranking 696th as of 2013.

The given name Otis arose from an English surname, which was in turn derived from Ode, a variant form of Odo, Otto.

People

Medieval period

Otto (mayor of the palace) (died 643 or 644), mayor of the palace of Austrasia briefly in the mid-7th century
Otto I, Duke of Saxony (851–912)
Otto the Great (912–973), East Frankish king and Holy Roman Emperor
Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (955–983)
Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (980–1002)
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1175/1176–1218)
Otto, Count of Cleves (1278–1310)
Otto, Count of Lippe-Brake (1589–1657)
Otto, Duke of Lolland and Estonia (1310–1346)
Otto, Count of Looz (fl. 980-1000)
Otto, Count of Vermandois (979–1045)
Otto, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1594–1617)
Otto, Lord of Arkel (1330–1396)
Otto, Lord of Lippe (1300–1360)
Otto, Margrave of the Nordmark (died 1057)
Otto of Bamberg (1060/1061–1139), bishop and Catholic saint
Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158), bishop and chronicler

Modern era

Otto of Greece (1815–1867), King of Greece
Otto, King of Bavaria (1848–1916), King of Bavaria
Otto Adler (1929–2014), president of the Jewish Association of Romania
Otto T. Bannard (1854–1929), American attorney, businessman and philanthropist
Otto Barić (1933–2020), Croatian footballer and manager
Otto Brandenburg (1934–2007), Danish musician, singer and actor
Otto Carius (1922–2015), German tank ace and pharmacist
Otto Diels (1876–1954), German chemist
Otto Dix (1891–1969), German painter and printmaker
Otto Dowling (1881–1946), governor of American Samoa
Otto Eloluoto (born 2008), Finnish footballer
Otto Farrant, British actor
Otto Fischer (footballer) (1901–1941), Austrian football player and coach
Otto Floto (1863–1929), American sports journalist
Otto Förschner (1902–1946), German Nazi SS concentration camp commandant
Otto Frank (1889–1980), German-born Swiss businessman, father of Anne Frank
Otto Freundlich (1878–1943), German painter and sculptor
Otto Graham (1921–2003), professional American football and basketball player
Otto Graf Lambsdorff (1926–2009), German politician
Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964), East German politician
Otto Gutekunst (1866–1947), British art dealer
Otto Hahn (1879–1968), German chemist
Otto Hautamo (born 2002), Finnish footballer
Otto Herschmann (1877–1942), Austrian fencer and swimmer
Otto Hindrich (born 2002), Romanian footballer
Otto Kemp (born 1999), American baseball player
Otto Kemppainen (born 2003), Finnish footballer
Otto Klemperer (1885–1973), German-born conductor and composer
Otto Knows (born 1989), Swedish DJ
Otto Koivula (born 1998), Finnish ice hockey player
Ottó Komoly (1892–1945) Hungarian humanitarian, engineer, officer and Zionist
Otto Kraushaar (1901–1989), American academic
Otto Kretschmer (1912–1998), German World War II U-boat captain
Otto Lehtisalo (born 2004), Finnish footballer
Otto Lietchen (1887–1977), American politician
Otto Lilienthal (1848–1896), German aviator
Otto Ludvig Beckman (1856–1909), Swedish major general
Otto Lybeck (1871–1947), Swedish Navy admiral
Otto Mahler (1873–1895), Bohemian-Austrian composer, brother of Gustav Mahler
Otto Mears (1840–1931), Russian-American road and railway builder
Otto Moll (1915–1946), German SS-Hauptscharführer at Auschwitz concentration camp
Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951), German SS general and Holocaust perpetrator
Otto Maximiliano Pereira de Cordeiro Ferreira (born 1968), Brazilian singer-songwriter, drummer and TV presenter
Otto Peterson (1960–2014), American comedian
Otto Petrén (1912–1990), Swedish jurist
Otto Porter (born 1993), American basketball player
Otto Planetta (1899–1934), Austrian Nazi Waffen-SS who murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
Otto Plath (1885–1940), entomologist, father of American poet Sylvia Plath
Otto Pohla (1899–1941), Estonian wrestler
Otto Preminger (1905–1986), Austro–Hungarian-born American film director
Otto Rehhagel (born 1938), German football coach
Otto Ruoppi (born 2006), Finnish footballer
Otto Sigfrid Reuter (1876–1945), German völkisch-religious ideologue
Otto Salmensuu (born 2004), Finnish footballer
Otto Sauter-Sarto (1884–1958), German actor
Otto Scheff (1889–1956), Austrian swimmer
Otto Schily (born 1932), German politician
Otto Schmitt (field hockey) (born 1965), Argentine field hockey player
Otto Skorzeny (1908–1975), Austrian-born Waffen-SS commando
Otto Sohn-Rethel (1877–1949), German painter and lepidopterist
Otto Soglow (1900–1975), American cartoonist
Otto Strandman (1875–1941), Estonian politician, Prime Minister in 1919, head of state 1929–1931
Otto Tief (1889–1976), Estonian politician, military commander, lawyer, Prime Minister
Otto Toeplitz (1881–1940), German mathematician, specialized in functional analysis
Otto van Verschuer (1927–2014), Dutch politician
Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck (1897–1975), German politician and diplomat
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), Prussian/German statesman
Otto von Habsburg (1912–2011), head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine from 1922 to 2007
Otto Waalkes (born 1948), German comedian and actor
Otto Wagner (1841–1918), Austrian architect
Otto Wahle (1879–1963), American swimmer
Otto F. Walter (1928–1994), Swiss journalist, author and publisher
Otto Warmbier (1994–2017), American student imprisoned in North Korea
Otto Weininger (1880–1903), Austrian philosopher
Otto Wichterle (1913–1998), Czech chemist, inventor soft contact lenses
Otto S. Wolfbeis (1947–2023), German chemist
Otto the Liar (2006–), Canadian 3 on 3 Hockey Player. Named by Stipe of Zadar.

Fictional characters

Otto Anderson, protagonist of the 2022 film A Man Called Otto, played by Tom Hanks
Otto Delaney, in the television series Sons of Anarchy
Herr Otto Flick, in the BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!
Otto Hightower, in the television series House of the Dragon
Otto Maddox, the main character in the 1984 film Repo Man
Otto Malpense, the main character in the H.I.V.E. series by Mark Walden
Otto Mann, in the animated television series The Simpsons
Otto Octavius, Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Octopus
Jake, Jeremiah, and Troy Otto, in the television series Fear the Walking Dead
Oswald "Otto" Rocket, the main character of Nickelodeon's Rocket Power
Otto Osworth, the main character of Cartoon Network's Time Squad
Otto Suwen, in the anime/manga series Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
Otto, the inflatable "auto" pilot in the 1980 comedy film Airplane!
Otto West, the main antagonist in the 1988 heist comedy A Fish Called Wanda
Otto, one of the main Minions in the 2022 animated comedy film Minions: The Rise of Gru
Ottoriki, one of the main characters in American animated children's television series GoGoRiki
Otto, the friend of Lab Rat in SuperKitties
Otto, in the children's television series Odd Squad
Otto, one of the five robot monkeys in the series Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!
Otto, in the 2024 film The Garfield Movie

References

"Otto - Französisch-Übersetzung - Langenscheidt Deutsch-Französisch Wörterbuch". [[Langenscheidt]].
Förstemann, ''Altdeutsches Namenbuch '' (1856), s.v. [https://archive.org/stream/altdeutschesnam00frgoog#page/n103/mode/1up "Aud"] (161–180). Förstemann calls the element "excessively frequent" (''Ein unendlich häufiger wortstamm''). Spelling variants listed for the short form are: ''Audo'', ''Auto'', ''Oudo'', ''Outo'', ''Outho'', ''Aoto'', ''Aotto'', ''Oato'', ''Odo'', ''Odda'', ''Oddo'', ''Oto'', ''Otto'' (8th century), ''Otho'', ''Ottho'', ''Odto'', ''Hodo'', ''Hoto'', ''Hotto'', ''Hottho'', ''Ootto'', ''Ocdo'', and ''Octto''. The surviving signatures of the Ottoian kings mostly read ''Otto'', sometimes ''Odo'' or ''Oto''. Listed as variants surviving into Modern High German are: ''Hoth'', ''Hotho'', ''Oette'', ''Ott'', ''Otte'', ''Otto'', and ''Otho''. The similarity of the Roman cognomen [[Otho]] is entirely coincidental. The spelling ''Otto'' is first recorded s.a. 744 in the charters of the Diocese of Constance (ed. [[Trudpert Neugart. Neugart]], ''codex diplomaticus Alamanniae'', 1791) and becomes increasingly common in the High Medieval period.
[http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/otto/us?viewing=graph US statistics (behindthename.com)].

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