The place-name Cotgrave seems to contain an Old English personal name, Cotta, + grāf (Old English), grove or copse, to make 'Cotta's grove'.J. Gover, A. Mawer, and F. M. Stenton, eds., Place Names of Nottinghamshire (Cambridge, 1940), p. 233; A. D. Mills, Dictionary of English Place-Names (Oxford, 2002), p. 133; E .Ekwall, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (Oxford, 1960), p. 124; V. Watts, Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names, (Cambridge, 2004), p. 160
