David Ott

(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.

English and German: from a Middle English personal name, Ode, in which personal names of several different origins have coalesced: principally Old English Od(d)a, Old Norse Od(d)a and Continental Germanic Odo, Otto. The first two are short forms of names with the first element Old English ord, Old Norse odd ‘point of a weapon’. The Continental Germanic names are from a short form of compound names with the first element od- ‘possessions’, ‘riches’. The situation is further confused by the fact that all of these names were Latinized as Odo. Odo was the name of the half-brother of the Conqueror, archbishop of Bayeux, who accompanied the Norman expedition to England and was rewarded with 439 confiscated manors. The German name Odo or Otto was a hereditary name in the Saxon ruling house, as well as being borne by Otto von Wittelsbach, who founded the Bavarian ruling dynasty in the 11th century, and the 12th-century Otto of Bamberg, apostle of Pomerania.