A sign on the side of the road that welcomes you to Cotati.

I took this photo of the welcome sign as I drove to the gas station. Since moving to Rohnert Park last year (2017), I’ve been interested in learning about my surroundings a bit more since this is a new place that I’m living in, and Cotati just kind of stood out to me. In comparison to the other towns around here at Sonoma State (which isn’t in Sonoma, funnily enough), Cotati just struck me as being different since it also isn’t a Spanish name. When asked to do this class, my thoughts went to the town of Cotati immediately, and I researched it. Sure enough, Cotati is actually from a tribelet of the Coast Miwok named the Kota’ti. Thanks to the glottal stop (the ‘ in Kota’ti), it’s actually pronounced differently from the current name of Cotati, however without confirmation, I can only make this claim due to studying linguistics since I am an Anthropology major. If I find out this is not the case, I will update this post. As for now, the reason the name has changed drastically is because this land area has gone through several claims via the Spanish, Mexican, and state and country land laws, Cotati formed when Wilfred Page, son of Dr. Thomas Stokes Page, changed the name from “Rancho Cotate” to “Rancho Cotati”, although when the ranch grew in size, it eventually dropped the first part of the name.

Source: http://cotatihistoricalsociety.org/history-of-cotati