Mota
A surname often tied to a place-name meaning a mound, hill, or raised bank.
The #2,547 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 21,770 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Mota is most likely a locational surname from Spanish and Portuguese place-names built on the word mota, meaning a mound, hillock, embankment, or raised strip of ground. The same root goes back to Latin mota, related to a raised earthwork or bank. In surname use, it would originally have identified someone who came from a place called Mota or lived near such a feature.
History
The surname is found in Iberian contexts, especially in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking areas, and also appears in surnames of people from places called Mota in medieval records. Similar forms occur in Norman and French records where the related place-name element de la Mote/de la Mota is used, showing that the same topographic word spread widely in medieval Europe. In the Americas, Mota is now most familiar as a Hispanic surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same basic word behind Mota is also found in many European place-names referring to a mound or fortified rise, so it is a classic topographic surname root.
From the historical record
“IMoto, or l)e la Mote. Oger, and Robert de Mota, and the fief of ^lote - Ebrard, Xovniandy 1 1 >0 (MliS). Simon le Mot, Engl, ll^'.i (ir^t. Tip.). Eichard :M..*io,c. 1272 (Ell;.”
— The Norman People and their existing descendants in the British dominions and the United States