Family name origins & meanings
- English : status name for a cottager (see Cotter 2), or a topographic name for someone who lived in a relatively humble dwelling (from Middle English cotes, plural (or genitive) of cote, cott), or a habitational name from any of the numerous places named with this word, especially Coates in Cambridgeshire and Cotes in Leicestershire.
- Scottish : variant of Coutts.
- Americanized spelling of German and Jewish Kotz or German Koths, from a variant of the medieval personal name Godo (see Gottfried).