Family name origins & meanings
- German : status name for a cottager or day laborer, from German Kotsasse, Kotsate, literally ‘inhabitant of a cottage’.
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from Middle High German, Middle Low German kotze (or Polish koc) ‘blanket’, ‘horsecloth’, ‘coarse woolen cloth or garment’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such cloth or a nickname for a poorly dressed person.
- German (Kötz) : from a pet form of the personal name Konrad.
- Hungarian (Kótz) and German : nickname from the Slavic loanword kóc ‘untidy hair’, ‘hair of corn’.