Otha
Feminine · “wealth”
Otha is given to both — 1,403 girls and 6,386 boys since 1880. See Otha as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Otha is a very old Germanic name about property. The element od or aud meant wealth, inheritance, the things a family owned and handed on — a serious idea in a society where that was the whole of a person's standing. It gave Otto, Otho, Odo and Otis, and it is one of the oldest name elements still in use.
How old is the name Otha?
Otha first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Otha alive today was born around 1926, making them about 99 years old. About 300 people named Otha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Otha most popular?
Otha peaked in 1907, reaching #945 nationally. See the whole 1907 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From aud to Otha
The story of Otha
Otho was a Roman emperor for three months in the year of four emperors, having deposed one predecessor and lost to the next; Tacitus gives him a better death than his life deserved. The name is otherwise Germanic and reached the Latin record by that route. Otto became the name of Holy Roman emperors and one of the standard German men's names, and Otha appears in American records as a variant of it, given to daughters as often as sons — which happens to short names ending in a vowel more or less regardless of their history.
Meaning
wealth; inheritance
Germanic aud or od means riches, prosperity and specifically inherited property, and it opens or closes a long list of names: Otto, Odo, Otis, and the ead of Edith is the English form of the same word. The derivation is not disputed. Otho is the Latinized spelling used in the Roman and medieval record. What the element meant was not money in the modern sense but standing — what a family had and could pass down.
How the name formed
- aud
- Otho
- Otha
Related forms: Otto · Ottone · Otho
Pronouncing Otha
OH-thuh
OH-thuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the th as in think. Otho in Latin would have been OH-toh with a plain t, so English has given the name a consonant it did not previously have — the same thing that happened to Martha.
Nicknames for Otha
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 192245 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #945reached in 1907
- Change vs 1966
- +80.0%9 in 1971, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Otha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Otto in German — related form
- Ottone in Italian — related form
- Otho in Latin — same name
Othas among us
people named Otha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Otha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The Germanic element behind it is genuinely ancient and its meaning is concrete.
- Otto is available as a formal alternative with a documented royal history.
- It works for either child, which the record confirms.
- The name is very strongly associated with the oldest generations and has not returned.
- Otha, Otho and Ova are all close in the American record and get confused.
- Most children with this spelling are boys, but a real minority are girls; either may be taken for the other.
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What they receive
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Otha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Othas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Otha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Otha in 2025?
- Otha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Otha with classmates?
- Otha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Olivia#1 · Opal#423 · Olive#197 · Olga#3167 · Ollie#2276 · Ora#3712 · Ola#7885 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Otha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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