Family name origins & meanings
- Said to be of French origin, this name is associated in the early 18th century with MD and subsequently with NC and SC. If it is French, it is probably a Huguenot name. It may be an altered form of French <xref>Petit</xref>, or possibly of French Pottet, which is from a diminutive of pot ‘pot’, in any of several senses : a metonymic occupational name for a potter, a nickname for a market trader, or a nickname for a rotund individual.
- Francis Poteet, from England, is recorded in MD in 1667.