Family name origins & meanings
- Japanese (Ōta) : ‘large rice paddy’; variously written and found mostly in western Japan and the Ryūkyū Islands. Some bearers are descended from the Minamoto and the surname is listed in the Shinsen shōjiroku. A village in Tōtōmi (now part of Shizuoka prefecture) gave its name to several families, but the village itself was originally named after a branch of the ancient Ōta clan which settled there.