Explore the Family Name Bhat

The meaning of Bhat

Indian: variant of Bhatt, common in the southern states of India. Some characteristic forenames: Indian Sanjay, Gajanan, Narayan, Narendra, Dinesh, Ganesh, Hari, Kiran, Narayana, Seema, Shrikant, Suresh.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Bhat in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Bhat has seen a significant rise in popularity between 2000 and 2010. It moved up from rank 20,916 to 13,916, a notable shift of about 33.47 percent. This increase is also reflected in the number of people carrying this last name, which jumped from 1,173 people in 2000 to 2,170 in 2010—an impressive growth of 85 percent. The proportion per 100k people also increased by 72.09 percent, shifting from 0.43 in 2000 to 0.74 in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#20,916	#13,916	33.47%
Count	1,173	2,170	85%
Proportion per 100k	0.43	0.74	72.09%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Bhat

In terms of ethnicity, data from the Decennial U.S. Census shows that the majority of people with the Bhat surname identify as Asian/Pacific Islander. From 2000 to 2010, this group experienced an increase of 1.98 percent, growing from 93.95 percent to 95.81 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of Bhats identifying with two or more races dropped by 56.93 percent. Furthermore, the percentage of white individuals decreased by 23.01 percent. There was a small increase in the Hispanic representation within people carrying the Bhat surname, moving from nonexistent in 2000 to 0.51 percent in 2010. No changes were recorded for the Black, American Indian, and Alaskan Native categories.

	2000	2010	Change
Asian/Pacific Islander	93.95%	95.81%	1.98%
White	2.39%	1.84%	-23.01%
Two or More Races	3.32%	1.43%	-56.93%
Hispanic	0%	0.51%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%