Otto

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-.
The given name Otis arose from an English surname, which was in turn derived from Ode, a variant form of Odo, Otto.
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 only in the 2010s, ranking 696th as of 2013.
People called Otto
Medieval
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)
the Ottonian dynasty
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912–973)
Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (955–983)
Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (980–1002)
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1175/1176–1218)
Otto of Bamberg (1060/1061–1139), bishop and Catholic saint
Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158), bishop and chronicler
Modern
Otto of Greece (1815–1867), King of Greece
Otto Barić (1933–2020), Croatian footballer and manager
Otto, King of Bavaria (1848–1916), King of Bavaria
Otto Adler, president of the Jewish Association of Romania
Otto T. Bannard (1854–1929), American attorney, businessman and philanthropist
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), 25th Governor of American Samoa
Otto Farrant, British actor
Otto Fischer (footballer) (1901–1941), Austrian (soccer) football player and coach
Otto Förschner (1902–1946), German Nazi SS concentration camp commandant; executed for war crimes
Otto Frank (1889–1980), German-born Swiss business man, 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 Hahn (1879–1968), German chemist
Otto Herschmann (1877–1942), Austrian Olympic fencing and swimming medalist
Otto Hindrich (2002-), Romanian Footballer
Otto Klemperer (1885–1973), German-born conductor and composer
Otto Knows (born 1989), Swedish DJ
Otto Koivula (born 1998), Finnish ice hockey player
Otto Kraushaar(1901–1989), American academic
Otto Kretschmer (1912–1998), German World War II U-boat captain
Otto Lietchen (1887–1977), American politician
Otto Lilienthal (1848–1896), German aviator
Otto Ludvig Beckman (1856–1909), Swedish Coastal Artillery major general
Otto Lybeck (1871–1947), Swedish Navy admiral
Otto Mahler (1873–1895), Bohemian-Austrian composer, brother of Gustav
Otto Mears (1840–1931), Russian-American road and railway builder
Otto Moll (1915–1946), German SS-Hauptscharführer at Auschwitz concentration camp; executed for war crimes
Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951), German SS general and Holocaust perpetrator; executed for war crimes
Otto Peterson (1960–2014), American comedian (Otto & George ventriloquism act)
Otto Petrén (1912–1990), Swedish jurist, President of the Supreme Court of Sweden
Otto Porter (born 1993), American professional basketball player for the Washington Wizards, NBA
Otto Planetta (1899–1934), Austrian Nazi Waffen-SS who murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
Otto Plath (1885–1940), father of American poet Sylvia Plath, and entomologist
Otto Pohla (1899–1941), Estonian wrestler
Otto Preminger (1905–1986), Austro–Hungarian-born American film director
Otto Rehhagel (born 1938), German football coach
Otto Sigfrid Reuter (1876–1945), German völkisch-religious ideologue
Otto Sauter-Sarto (1884–1958), German actor
Otto Scheff (1889–1956), Austrian Olympic swimming champion
Otto Schily (born 1932), German politician
Otto Schmitt (field hockey) (born 1965), Argentine field hockey goalkeeper
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, former Prime Minister
Otto Tief (1889–1976), Estonian politician, military commander, lawyer, former Prime Minister
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), Austrian-born American Olympic swimming medalist and Hall of Fame
Otto F. Walter (1928–1994), Swiss journalist, author and publisher
Otto Warmbier (1994–2017), American student imprisoned in North Korea
Otto Weininger (1880–1903), Christian Austrian philosopher
Otto Maximiliano Pereira de Cordeiro Ferreira (born 1968), Brazilian singer-songwriter, drummer and TV presenter
Otto Wichterle (1913–1998), Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses
Otto S. Wolfbeis (born 1947), professor of analytical chemistry and interface chemistry at the University of Regensburg
Fictional entities
Otto Delaney, a character in the drama Sons of Anarchy on the American TV network FX, played by series creator Kurt Sutter
Herr Otto Flick, a character in the BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!
Otto Hightower, Hand of the King to Viserys Targaryen in HBO 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, character on the animated TV series The Simpsons
Otto Octavius, fictional Marvel Comics supervillain otherwise known as Doctor Octopus. One of Spider-Man's nemeses
Jake, Jeremiah, and Troy Otto, character on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 3
Oswald "Otto" Rocket, the main character of Nickelodeon's Rocket Power
Otto Osworth, the main character of Cartoon Network's Time Squad
Otto Suwen, a character 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 computer-animated comedy film Minions: The Rise of Gru
Ottoriki, one of the main characters in American animated children's television series GoGoRiki.
Animals
Otto (dog) (1989–2010), world's oldest dog
Otocinclus, Sucking catfish, often known as 'Otto'
See also
Otto (disambiguation)
Oto (name)
Auðr (disambiguation)
Ēðel
References
External links
AUD, Name List: Auð- (nordicnames.de)
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