The history of your name

The OTTER surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 1,238 20041 0 5
United States (1880 census) 297 14372 0.001 6
Change since 1880 +941 -5669 +N/A -1
Other Countries
Australia 136 10780 0.001 8
United Kingdom 1,025 5170 0.002 22
Top States for OTTER by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Michigan 116 11012 0.001 12
Washington 89 8247 0.002 15
California 87 26335 0.000 3
Kansas 78 4352 0.003 29
Indiana 62 11289 0.001 10
Top States for OTTER by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Kansas 78 4352 0.003 29
Idaho 34 5524 0.003 26
Washington 89 8247 0.002 15
South Dakota 11 11881 0.001 15
Alaska 9 11485 0.001 14

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called OTTER live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called OTTER represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called OTTER in Michigan than any other state, but you are more likely to find a OTTER by picking someone at random in Kansas than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of OTTER

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Nickname

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the OTTER surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the OTTER surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of OTTER in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 21 1.7
White (Hispanic) 19 1.53
Mixed Race 13 1.05
White (Caucasian) 1,170 94.51
Asian/Pacific Less than 100 Insignificant
Native American/Alaskan Less than 100 Insignificant

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the OTTER surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of OTTER in historical publications

(origin: Local) Oitir, Gaelic, a low promontory jutting into the sea, a shoal.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


OTTER. A Scandinavian personal name of great antiquity, and common application. It is variously spelt Otter, Ohter, Other, Othyr, Ottyr, Oter, and in Domesday

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to OTTER

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as OTTER.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for OTTER

The following words are slight variants of OTTER that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.