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Surname Etymology and Meaning of COTT

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

1. English: from the Old English personal name Cotta.
2. Possibly an altered spelling of French Cotte, a metonymic occupational name for a maker of chain mail, from Old French cot(t)e ‘coat of mail’, ‘surcoat’. It may perhaps have been used as a nickname for a hard and unfeeling person, but is unlikely to have been a nickname for a wearer of a coat of mail, since only the richest classes, who already had distinguished family names of their own, could afford such protection. A later meaning of cotte is a long-sleeved garment, worn by both men and women.
3. Alternatively, possibly an altered spelling of French Cot, from a reduced form of Jacot or Nicot, pet forms of Jacques and Nicolas (see Nicholas).
4. Respelling of German Koth or the variant Kott.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)