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Otho

Boys' name

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Otho has been given to 3,328 babies in the U.S. since 1880. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1915, with 109 recorded.

Babies named Otho, 1991

1 in 779,000

Otho over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Otho: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Otho means

Otho is a given name.

The naming story behind Otho

Charlotte M. Yonge’s 1884 History of Christian Names includes the exact spelling Otho in its glossary. The entry labels it masculine and points to printed page(s) 376.

The glossary’s abbreviated description reads: “Lat. Teu. happy (?)”. This is the historical author’s wording, including its language abbreviations and any proposed interpretation. It is presented as historical evidence, not as a verified modern translation. Victorian classifications and root explanations can differ from later linguistic research.

For Otho, the current short meaning therefore remains unconfirmed. Establishing its modern etymology requires a current reference that documents the exact form and its relationship to the proposed earlier words.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,328 boys were recorded with the name Otho between 1880 and 1991. Its highest annual count was 109 in 1915; its best national rank was #322 in 1881.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Otho?

Otho had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1991, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1991
1 in 779,000
5 of 3,892,928 births
Among boys only
1 in 404,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1991
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
539,676 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Otho sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1991 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 539,676 children born in 1991 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Otho. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Othos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Otho was born before 1922 — so the typical Otho is around 103 today.

Median birth year
1922
About 103 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
23.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.7%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
401
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 23.6% of all recorded uses (784).

Is Otho rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1915 (109)
Years since peak
110
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
38.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#322
1881

Spellings of Otho

Otho is not the most common spelling — Otis is, with 38.8% against Otho's 2.1%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Otho is used

Across 1910–2025, Otho was most concentrated in Mississippi — about 1 in 7,692 boys, against 1 in 69,247 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

013 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Mississippi1 in 7,692
  2. 2Arkansas1 in 25,000
  3. 3Virginia1 in 25,000
  4. 4Oklahoma1 in 33,333
  5. 5North Carolina1 in 50,000
  6. 6West Virginia1 in 50,000
  7. 7Indiana1 in 100,000
  8. 8Kentucky1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Otho has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Notable people named Otho

People whose public names include Otho, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Otho by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#322
1881
Peak year
1915
109 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
1991
All-time count
3,328
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Otho

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

OthaOthmanOthelOthnielOthelloOtherOthalOtharOthmarOthellOthonOthieOthorThoOthanOthonielJohnatho

Names with a curve like Otho

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Otho, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

FayAdelbertAllieMelvilleElzieClareVivianEvertAloisElmoreElzaLudwig

Sibling names for Otho

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Otho

Top names of 1915, Otho's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1881Boys' names starting with O