Otto

Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants Audo, Odo, Udo) of Germanic names beginning in aud-, an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".

The name is recorded from the 7th century (Odo, son of Uro, courtier of Sigebert III). It was the name of three 10th-century German kings, the first of whom was Otto I the Great, the first Holy Roman Emperor, founder of the Ottonian dynasty.

The Gothic form of the prefix was auda- (as in e.g. Audaþius), the Anglo-Saxon form was ead- (as in e.g. Eadmund), and the Old Norse form was auð-.

Due to Otto von Bismarck, the given name Otto was strongly associated with the German Empire in the later 19th century. It was comparatively frequently given in the United States (presumably in German American families) during the 1880s to 1890s, remaining in the top 100 most popular masculine given names in the US throughout 1880–1898, but its popularity decreased significantly after 1900 with increasing anti-German sentiment leading up to World War I; it fell below rank 200 in 1919, below rank 500 in 1947, and below rank 1000 in 1975. It re-entered the top-1000 most popular given names in the US in the 2010s, ranking 696th as of 2013.

The given name Otis arose from an English surname, which was in turn derived from Ode, a variant form of Odo, Otto.

Medieval

 * Otto (mayor of the palace) (died 643 or 644), mayor of the palace of Austrasia briefly in the mid-7th century
 * Otto I, Duke of Saxony (851–912)
 * the Ottonian dynasty
 * Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912–973)
 * Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor (955–983)
 * Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (980–1002)
 * Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1175/1176–1218)
 * Otto of Bamberg (1060/1061–1139), bishop and Catholic saint
 * Otto of Freising (c. 1114–1158), bishop and chronicler

Modern

 * Otto of Greece (1815–1867), King of Greece
 * Otto Barić (1933–2020), Croatian footballer and manager
 * Otto, King of Bavaria (1848–1916), King of Bavaria
 * Otto Adler (1929–2014), president of the Jewish Association of Romania
 * Otto T. Bannard (1854–1929), American attorney, businessman and philanthropist
 * Otto Carius (1922–2015), German tank ace and pharmacist
 * Otto Diels (1876–1954), German chemist
 * Otto Dix (1891–1969), German painter and printmaker
 * Otto Dowling (1881–1946), 25th Governor of American Samoa
 * Otto Farrant, British actor
 * Otto Fischer (footballer) (1901–1941), Austrian (soccer) football player and coach
 * Otto Floto (1863–1929), American sports journalist
 * Otto Förschner (1902–1946), German Nazi SS concentration camp commandant; executed for war crimes
 * Otto Frank (1889–1980), German-born Swiss business man, father of Anne Frank
 * Otto Freundlich (1878–1943), German painter and sculptor
 * Otto Graham (1921–2003), professional American football and basketball player
 * Otto Graf Lambsdorff (1926–2009), German politician
 * Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964), East German politician
 * Otto Hahn (1879–1968), German chemist
 * Otto Herschmann (1877–1942), Austrian Olympic fencing and swimming medalist
 * Otto Hindrich (born 2002), Romanian footballer
 * Otto Klemperer (1885–1973), German-born conductor and composer
 * Otto Knows (born 1989), Swedish DJ
 * Otto Koivula (born 1998), Finnish ice hockey player
 * Otto Kraushaar (1901–1989), American academic
 * Otto Kretschmer (1912–1998), German World War II U-boat captain
 * Otto Lietchen (1887–1977), American politician
 * Otto Lilienthal (1848–1896), German aviator
 * Otto Ludvig Beckman (1856–1909), Swedish Coastal Artillery major general
 * Otto Lybeck (1871–1947), Swedish Navy admiral
 * Otto Mahler (1873–1895), Bohemian-Austrian composer, brother of Gustav
 * Otto Mears (1840–1931), Russian-American road and railway builder
 * Otto Moll (1915–1946), German SS-Hauptscharführer at Auschwitz concentration camp; executed for war crimes
 * Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951), German SS general and Holocaust perpetrator; executed for war crimes
 * Otto Peterson (1960–2014), American comedian (Otto & George ventriloquism act)
 * Otto Petrén (1912–1990), Swedish jurist, President of the Supreme Court of Sweden
 * Otto Porter (born 1993), American professional basketball player for the Washington Wizards, NBA
 * Otto Planetta (1899–1934), Austrian Nazi Waffen-SS who murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
 * Otto Plath (1885–1940), father of American poet Sylvia Plath, and entomologist
 * Otto Pohla (1899–1941), Estonian wrestler
 * Otto Preminger (1905–1986), Austro–Hungarian-born American film director
 * Otto Rehhagel (born 1938), German football coach
 * Otto Sigfrid Reuter (1876–1945), German völkisch-religious ideologue
 * Otto Sauter-Sarto (1884–1958), German actor
 * Otto Scheff (1889–1956), Austrian Olympic swimming champion
 * Otto Schily (born 1932), German politician
 * Otto Schmitt (field hockey) (born 1965), Argentine field hockey goalkeeper
 * Otto Skorzeny (1908–1975), Austrian-born Waffen-SS commando
 * Otto Sohn-Rethel (1877–1949), German painter and lepidopterist
 * Otto Soglow (1900–1975), American cartoonist
 * Otto Strandman (1875–1941), Estonian politician, Prime Minister in 1919, head of state 1929–1931
 * Otto Tief (1889–1976), Estonian politician, military commander, lawyer, Prime Minister in 1944
 * Otto van Verschuer (1927–2014), Dutch politician
 * Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck (1897–1975), German politician and diplomat
 * Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), Prussian/German statesman
 * Otto von Habsburg (1912–2011), head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine from 1922 to 2007
 * Otto Waalkes (born 1948), German comedian and actor
 * Otto Wagner (1841–1918), Austrian architect
 * Otto Wahle (1879–1963), Austrian-born American Olympic swimming medalist and Hall of Fame
 * Otto F. Walter (1928–1994), Swiss journalist, author and publisher
 * Otto Warmbier (1994–2017), American student imprisoned in North Korea
 * Otto Weininger (1880–1903), Austrian philosopher
 * Otto Maximiliano Pereira de Cordeiro Ferreira (born 1968), Brazilian singer-songwriter, drummer and TV presenter
 * Otto Wichterle (1913–1998), Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses
 * Otto S. Wolfbeis (born 1947), professor of analytical chemistry and interface chemistry at the University of Regensburg

Fictional entities

 * Otto Delaney, a character in the drama Sons of Anarchy on the American TV network FX, played by series creator Kurt Sutter
 * Herr Otto Flick, a character in the BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!
 * Otto Hightower, Hand of the King to Viserys Targaryen in HBO series House of the Dragon
 * Otto Maddox, the main character in the 1984 film Repo Man
 * Otto Malpense, the main character in the H.I.V.E. series by Mark Walden
 * Otto Mann, character on the animated TV series The Simpsons
 * Otto Octavius, fictional Marvel Comics supervillain otherwise known as Doctor Octopus. One of Spider-Man's nemeses
 * Jake, Jeremiah, and Troy Otto, character on Fear the Walking Dead, Season 3
 * Oswald "Otto" Rocket, the main character of Nickelodeon's Rocket Power
 * Otto Osworth, the main character of Cartoon Network's Time Squad
 * Otto Suwen, a character in the anime/manga series Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
 * Otto, the inflatable "auto" pilot in the 1980 comedy film Airplane!
 * Otto West, the main antagonist in the 1988 heist comedy A Fish Called Wanda
 * Otto, one of the main Minions in the 2022 animated comedy film Minions: The Rise of Gru
 * Ottoriki, one of the main characters in American animated children's television series GoGoRiki
 * Otto, the friend of Lab Rat in SuperKitties
 * Otto, in the children's TV series Odd Squad

Animals

 * Otto (dog) (1989–2010), world's oldest dog
 * Otocinclus, genus of sucking catfish, often known as 'Otto'