# Motte (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/motte/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | French |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 691 |
| US rank (2010) | 33,121 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 446,810 people |
| Change since 2000 | -8.8% (758 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

* As a French, Walloon, and West Flemish surname, from Old French mot, motte (“embankment, hill, mound”), from Medieval Latin mota (“fortified height”), which could be of Celtic origin and from Gaulish *mutt, *mutta (compare Welsh mwd (“vault, arch, canopy”), Irish móta (“moat”), though this itself could have been borrowed from the English) or otherwise of Germanic origin and from the root of mud. Compare Delamotte, Demotte, Lamotte. * As an English surname, variant of Mott. * As a German surname, perhaps from Motten in Bavaria, first attested 837, from the personal name Moto (compare *mōd (“courage, bravery”)).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Motte in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 69% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 21% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 5.2% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.7% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.4% |
| Two or more races | 3.0% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Motte in the United States.

## People named Motte

- Jason Motte, American baseball relief pitcher

## Similar surnames

Mott, Mota, Mote, Motta, Matte, Matteo, Mattei, Mattie, Motto, Mode, Mowatt, Moody.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.