Family name origins & meanings
- Portuguese and Spanish : possibly a nickname from cota ‘breast armor’.
- Italian : from a short form of a personal name formed with the suffix -cotta, as for example Ciccotta, or a nickname from cotta ‘(ecclesiastical) habit’.
- French and : from medieval Latin cotta, Old French cotte, denoting a kind of long-sleeved tunic worn both by men and women, hence possibly an occupational name for someone who made such garments or a nickname for someone who habitually wore one.
- German : habitational name from either of two places named Cotta, near Pirna and near Dresden in Saxony.