First of all the oldest reference to it (no macrons) was as the Maori term for Port Chalmers.
But I am wondering if it’s even Maori. You see;
Oti is a loan word in Maori for oats*
And poti is a loan word in Maori for boats.
If you stop to think about it for a second oats and boats are pretty similar words.
So I give you Oaty Boaty as a suggestion to virtue signalling Mayor Aaron if he wants to change the name of Dunedin.
I’d take that letter Aaron is quoting with a grain of salt as well as NZ Greens have been doing the old “look how mean they are to me” shit for several years now. And they’ve never backed it up yet.
And whoever came up with Otepoti was a great joker whether Maori or Scottish.
There were quite a lot of oats grown in Otago by the 1860s by the way.
* excuse the macron and slightly different spelling it’s still pronounced the same and you can find other sources for ote instead of oti if you want to search for it.