Ochoa ( or Otsoa) is a Spanish surname of Basque origin common throughout Spain, France, the Americas, and the Philippines. It is a surname of patronymic origin; it was originally a given name in Medieval Spain. The name originated in the Basque Country and means "the wolf", from the Basque vocabulary word otso/otxo meaning "wolf" (the suffix -a in the Basque language represents the definite article). In Standard Basque, the name is spelled otsoa or otxoa. There was also a female given name Ochanda (meaning "female wolf", cf. the elegant tower in the old quarter of Vitoria-Gasteiz named after Ochanda, proper name of the daughter of a man responsible for revamping the tower in the 16th century) and Ochotorena or Otxotorena, meaning "son of Ochoto" (literally "small wolf"). The Spanish equivalent of this Basque given name was Lope, also appearing in the names of Gascon lords in the High Middle Ages. Geographical distribution As of 2014, 32.2% of all known bearers of the surname Ochoa were residents of Mexico (frequency 1:671), 12.1% of Colombia (1:686), 11.8% of the United States (1:5,302), 9.4% of Venezuela (1:556), 5.8% of Peru (1:949), 5.1% of Guatemala (1:547), 4.8% of Argentina (1:1,537), 4.8% of Ecuador (1:580), 3.1% of Honduras (1:492), 2.5% of Spain (1:3,191), 1.6% of Nicaragua (1:651), 1.4% of Cuba (1:1,390), 1.4% of Bolivia (1:1,286) and 1.3% of El Salvador (1:861). In Spain, the frequency of the surname was higher than national average (1:3,191) in the following autonomous communities: La Rioja (1:310) Navarre (1:438) Basque Country (1:1,261) Cantabria (1:1,963) Aragon (1:2,024) Castilla-La Mancha (1:2,573) Community of Madrid (1:2,933) In Honduras, the frequency of the surname was higher than national average (1:492) in the following departments: Choluteca (1:147) Francisco Morazán (1:309) Olancho (1:370) Valle (1:427) People Alex Ochoa (born 1972), American baseball player Andre Ochoa (born 2002), American soccer player Arnaldo Ochoa (1930–1989), Cuban army general, executed for treason Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa (born 1963), Mexican politician, mayor of Matamoros, Tamaulipas Blanca Fernández Ochoa (1963–2019), Spanish alpine skier Carla Ochoa (born 1979), Chilean fashion model Carlos Ochoa (born 1978), Mexican football (soccer) player Carlos José Ochoa (born 1980), Venezuelan cyclist Carlos M. Ochoa (1920–2008), Peruvian botanist Digna Ochoa (1964–2001), Mexican human-rights lawyer Dominic Ochoa (born 1974), Filipino actor Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (born 1973), Belgium dance choreographer Eduardo López Ochoa (1877–1936), Spanish army general, Africanist, and Freemason Eduardo M. Ochoa (born 1950), Argentine-American university president Eliades Ochoa