Cotter
Originally a status or occupation name for a cottager or unfree tenant, later used as a hereditary surname.
The #3,010 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 25,936 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name goes back to Middle English cotter, a person who lived in or held a cot, a small cottage or holding. In medieval usage it could mean a cottager or, in some legal contexts, a tenant of low status who held land on servile terms. The surname was therefore first applied as an occupational or social-status byname rather than as a family-name of one fixed place.
History
English records show the name early, and 19th-century surname writers linked it with feudal tenancy and the word cotter or cotterel. In Scotland, Cotter could also reflect the local word for a cottager. In Ireland, Cotter is also found as an anglicized form associated with Gaelic naming traditions, including MacCotter and related forms.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One medieval use of the word could describe a tenant so low in the feudal hierarchy that his person and goods were under a lord’s control.
From the historical record
“COTTAM. See Gotham. COTTER. COTTAR. Scotch. A cot- tager. See Cotman. COTTERELL. COTTRELL. In feudal times, " the cotcrellus held in absolute vil- lenage aud had his person and goods dis- posed at the pleasure of the lord." Kennet's Paroch. Autiq. He was probably so called, cou”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom