Idk if in the 2 years (and then some) since this comment you've come to find this out but! In case anyone reading this comment section doesn't know, the term shota (as in, the male variant of "loli," if you will) originates from Shōtarō Complex (abbreviated into shotacon). Shōtarō is a really common Japanese name that is usually (stereotypically) associated to young boys, and in modern times will often be shortened to Shōta. Think, for example, of the name "Billy" and how it just naturally sounds young and boy-ish.
Shouta and Shota are just variant ways of writing Shōta — the first being more phonetically correct, and the second one being more focused on a clean written form. As the internet and similar spaces evolved things into slang, nowadays the terms shota and shotacon have become the standardized form of these, with the original "ō" from the actual name just vanishing.
(Regardless of this lingo, tho, Shōta is still a pretty common name in Japan.)
Hahah thanks! I knew about the meaning (and the variant way of how its written) but I just found that authors tend to name short people as 'Shouta' like it's a 'theme' for short character x)))
I found authors giving Shouta as the tiny human name in many(? Well a lot) kids in BL or is it just super common coz shouta is shota /what am I even saying