Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from any of numerous places named from Old English cotum (dative plural of cot) ‘at the cottages or huts’ (or sometimes possibly from a Middle English plural, coten). Examples include Coton (Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire), Cottam (East Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire), and Cotham (Nottinghamshire).
- French : from a diminutive of Old French cot(t)e ‘coat (of mail)’ (see Cott).
- John Cotton (1584–1652) was a noted Puritan preacher, who landed at Boston, MA, from London in 1633 and became leader of the Congregationalists in America.