Explore the Family Name Chidambaram

The meaning of Chidambaram

Indian (Tamil Nadu): habitational name from a historic city on the coast of Tamil Nadu, whose name in Sanskrit, chit ambara means ‘ether of consciousness’ or ‘atmosphere of wisdom’. The city is noted for its thousand year old temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva as lord of the dance.

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

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

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Chidambaram has increased significantly in popularity between 2000 and 2010. Ranked at 118,954 in 2000, it jumped to a rank of 59,470 by 2010, a leap of approximately 50%. The count of individuals with this surname similarly saw a significant increase from 135 in 2000 to 340 in 2010, marking an increase of about 152%. Consequently, the proportion of people named Chidambaram per 100,000 also rose from 0.05 to 0.12 during this period, indicating a 140% change.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#118,954	#59,470	50.01%
Count	135	340	151.85%
Proportion per 100k	0.05	0.12	140%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Chidambaram

In terms of ethnicity, the data from the Decennial U.S. Census indicates that the majority of those with the surname Chidambaram identify as Asian/Pacific Islander. In 2000, almost 97% of people with this surname identified as such, with this figure slightly decreasing to approximately 96.5% in 2010. Notably, there was no recorded ethnicity data for the categories White, Hispanic, Black, and American Indian/Alaskan Native in either 2000 or 2010. However, the category of two or more races had a slight uptick from zero in 2000 to 1.76% in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Asian/Pacific Islander	97.04%	96.47%	-0.59%
Two or More Races	0%	1.76%	0%
White	0%	0%	0%
Hispanic	0%	0%	0%
Black	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%