Date
Meaning & History
From the Old English personal name Cotta. 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. Alternatively, possibly an altered spelling of French Cot, from a reduced form of Jacot or Nicot, pet forms of Jacques and Nicolas (see Nicholas). Respelling of German Koth or the variant Kott.