Otto

Where Otto comes from

Borrowed from German Otto, from Old High German, short form of compound names (such as Otachar, Ottokar) beginning with Proto-West Germanic *aud, from Proto-Germanic *audaz (“wealth, riches”) (cognate of English Ed- in Edgar, Edmund, Edward, Edith, etc.).
— Wiktionary's entry for Otto
  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1815
    Otto von Bismarck born
    German statesman and Chancellor
  2. 1879
    Otto Hahn born
    German chemist and physicist
  3. 1880
    First SSA year, and the peak
    #63 among boys with 271 babies — the first year on record, and still its best.
  4. 2024
    The comeback
    Back to #274 after sinking to #1,836 in 1997.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages.
Namesakes
  • Otto von Bismarck · German statesman and Chancellor, 1815–1898
  • Otto Hahn · German chemist and physicist, 1879–1968
  • Otto I the Great · Holy Roman Emperor from 962 to 973, 912–973
  • Otto Stern · German-American physicist, 1888–1969
  • Otto Wallach · German chemist, 1847–1931

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.