From Warli Painting by Shabbir

Welcome!

Swaagatam • Marhaban • Kem-Chho • Wilkommen • Namashkar • Bienvenue •

We are a multi-ethnic family blending different cultures, traditions and languages - allowing us to enjoy some of the wonderful diversity in our world today.

About Our Family Name:

The Khambatti family gets its name from the island of Khambat (formerly Cambay) that lies off the coast of southern Gujarat (a state in Western India). Some people think Khambat was the location of a 9,500 year old urban civilization. Read about the debate on Frontline and on Wikipedia.

Interesting Fact!! We almost would have been the Bharucha family (meaning "from Bharuch"), except that when my paternal grandparents came to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) from Khambat, people began calling them Khambatti. Until the early 1900's people's last names were still being changed to indicate the place where they came from or their profession, e.g. Tanvir Karachiwala for Tanvir the person from Karachi, or Pankaj Bandookwala for Pankaj the person who sells guns (Bandook).

There are other families that share the same name, sometimes with a different spelling (e.g. Khambati, Khambaty, Khambatta, etc.). This is due to the way in which people got their last names until the early part of last century, i.e. based on the region you came from.

Related Families:

We are not necessarily related to anyone with the same last name - it just means that some generations ago, our forefathers came from the same place, i.e. Khambat (or people thought they did)

The Khambatti family is closely related to these other families: Anderson, Abbas Ali, Bakhala, Bankhead, Barbhaiwala, Cementwala, Dhansura, Dhorajiwala, Godhrawala, Goriawala, Hussain, Khedapa, Mulla, Poonawala, Taylor, Zaveri

You can imagine that family reunions (usually at weddings) are a blast!

The Khambatti Family Tree:

Facts and Figures:

Population

over 75 people! (counting related families)

Languages

English (primary), other languages spoken with varying degrees of fluency include Arabic, Bengali, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Urdu

Regions

16 cities and 6 countries

Occupation

Various occupations in Medicine & Health, Law, Finance, Art & Design, Academia, Engineering & Technology, and Commerce