Phonetic variant of Curtis, from Old French 'curteis' meaning 'courteous'.
Kurtis is a phonetic respelling of Curtis, which arrived in England with the Normans after 1066 and derives from the Old French courteis — meaning "courteous," "well-bred," or literally "of the court." In medieval usage, it was less a personal name than a descriptor of social standing: to be courtois was to possess the manners, education, and refinement of court life, a quality the Norman aristocracy prized and the name embodied. Curtis became established as a surname first, then migrated — as so many Norman surnames did — into the given name pool, particularly in English-speaking countries during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The variant Kurt, separately derived from the German form of Conrad (meaning "bold counsel"), added another cultural stream to names in this family. The Kurtis spelling specifically carries strong associations with hip-hop's founding generation through Kurtis Blow — born Kurt Walker — who in 1979 became the first rapper to sign with a major record label and whose single "The Breaks" became one of the genre's earliest gold records. His deliberate respelling of his name was part of a broader creative tradition in hip-hop of asserting individuality through orthography, and it gave the Kurtis form a distinctly American, distinctly modern flavor.
Today Kurtis reads as a name that bridges worlds: it carries Curtis's old courtly dignity while the altered spelling signals independence and creative self-definition. Parents who choose it often appreciate that double quality — a name rooted in history that has been claimed and remade by something new.