Family name origins & meanings
- Spanish and Portuguese : topographic name for someone who lived by a fortified stronghold, from mot(t)a, a borrowing from Old French motte (see Motte 1).
- Spanish : habitational name from places in the provinces of Cuenca and Valladolid named Mota.
- Catalan : topographic name from mota ‘hillock’, denoting someone who lived by a hillock.
- Catalan : habitational name from places in Girona and Valencia.