Family name origins & meanings
- English : unexplained; probably a variant of Goate which may derive either from Middle English gat (Old English gāt), hence a metonymic occupational name for someone who kept goats or a nickname for someone thought to resemble a goat in some way, or a topographic name for someone who lived by a watercourse or sluice, Middle English gote. Possibly in some instances the name may be an altered form of Coates.
- Possibly an Americanized spelling of German Götz (see Goetz).