Patel is an Indian surname or title, predominantly found in the state of Gujarat, representing the community of land-owning farmers and later (with the British East India Company) businessmen, agriculturalists and merchants.
Traditionally the title 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.
[1] The Gujarati term paṭel, along with its cognate Marathi terms pāṭel and pāṭīl, are derived from the Prakrit word paṭṭaïl(l)a- "village headman", itself derived from the Sanskrit word paṭṭakila "tenant of royal land", a term first appearing in the Vetālapañcaviṃśatikā.
In 2009, The Telegraph released a news article indicating that, in the United Kingdom, the surnames Patel and Singh now rank amongst native ones such as Smith and Jones.
[14] With those who immigrated to Germany during British colonial rule in India, Gujaratis used the variation "Pätel", with an umlaut, to better integrate with German society.