The name was PROBABLY changed from Thao to Bliatout back in the late 80s when Bruce Bliatout got his Ph.D.
If Bliatout's were originally Thao's, even if he gotten his Ph.D. He should have kept Thao. Why would would you not be proud of who you are? It's crazy enough, that a lot of the older people, changed their first name to "David, Bruce, Tony, etc..." but at least keep your given last name.
Do you think the votes had anything to do with the clan name? Blong Xiong clearly used Xiong as his clan name but he still didn't get enough votes to win over that Latino guy.
Not sure about Blong Xiong, but in MN, those that won, used their Clan names, "Mee Moua, Foung Hawj, Fue Lee, Kaohly Her, Jay Xiong and Tou Xiong". Not to mention the ones that didn't win, "Grace Moua, Samantha Vang, Adam Yang, Blong Yang, Cindy Yang, Paul Yang and Yele-Mis Yang". But you know how hard it is to get Hmong people out to vote and if they did get out to vote and they weren't following politics, but strictly voting based off of clan name, I'm pretty sure they'd pass up "Bliatout"... when I first saw Bobby Bliatout speaking, if he didn't reference "Hmong" or if I didn't look him up, I wouldn't have known he was even Hmong. I didn't even know about a Bruce Bliatout until I looked up Bobby. If your proud of who you are, just my thoughts... change your name back to your original clan name...