Patel is an Indian surname, predominantly found in the state of Gujarat representing the community of land-owning farmers and later businessmen, agriculturalists and merchants. Traditionally the surname is a status name referring to the village chieftains during medieval times, and was later retained as successive generations stemmed out into communities of landowners, including Patidars, Kolis, some Parsis and Muslims. There are roughly 500,000 Patels outside India, including about 150,000 in the United Kingdom and about 150,000 in the United States. Nearly 1 in 10 people of Indian origin in the US is a Patel.
