Khitan names are the personal names of the

Khitan people The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; ) were a historical Eurasian nomads, nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East. ...

which ruled the Liao dynasty (907–1125) in

ancient China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

and Kara-Khitan Khanate (1124–1218) in

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. A

nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

ic Mongolic people, the Khitans have been extinct, making research on their cultures difficult. Currently, the

Khitan language Khitan or Kitan ( in large Khitan script, large script or in small Khitan script, small, ''Khitai''; , ''Qìdānyǔ''), also known as Liao, is an extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people (4th to 13th century CE). It wa ...

has largely not been deciphered, and the presence of 2 different writing systems - the

Khitan large script The Khitan large script () was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language (the other was the Khitan small script). It was used during the 10th–12th centuries by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in no ...

and the

Khitan small script The Khitan small script () was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th–12th century by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in present-day northeastern China. In addition to ...

, make research more difficult. The problem is compounded by the fact that most of the Liao history were recorded in

written Chinese Written Chinese is a writing system that uses Chinese characters and other symbols to represent the Chinese languages. Chinese characters do not directly represent pronunciation, unlike letters in an alphabet or syllabograms in a syllabary. Rath ...

such as ''

History of Liao History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

'', and

transliteration into Chinese characters Transcription into Chinese characters is the use of traditional or simplified Chinese characters to '' phonetically'' transcribe the sound of terms and names of foreign words to the Chinese language. Transcription is distinct from translation ...

are not always standard even in modern days, much less in ancient days when the pronunciation is different as Chinese is

logographic In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese c ...

Research

Research have shown that an aristocratic Khitan man, if one disregards the

family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

or clan name such as

Yelü The Yelü clan (Khitan language, Khitan: , spelled , pronounced ''Yeruuld''; ), alternatively rendered as Yila () or Yarud, was a prominent family of ethnic Khitan people, Khitan origin in the history of China. The clan assumed leadership of the ...

, may have four distinct personal names: * the

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a f ...

in Chinese, not always recorded * the

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

, rarely encountered * two names in Khitan, each possibly transliterated into Chinese in many different ways **one called "nickname" (小字), which consists of 1-3 Khitan words **one called "courtesy name" (字, which is unfortunately also the same character used to denote the courtesy name), which consists of one Khitan word and is not always recorded The two names in Khitan can be joined by placing the Khitan courtesy name before the Khitan nickname.:契丹古俗「妻連夫名」與「子連父名」──再論契丹人的「字」一詞的詞性問題──
For first-born sons, the nickname is a variant of his father's Khitan courtesy name. This

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic. Patronymics are used, b ...

practice is similar to that observed in some

Mongolian name Mongolian names have undergone a number of changes in the history of Mongolia, both with regard to their meaning and their source languages. In Inner Mongolia, naming customs are now similar to Mongolia but with some differences. Historical evol ...

s with whom the Khitans are distantly related.

Romanization

Due to lack of better alternatives, currently Khitan names are

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

alphabetically based on the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

spelling of the most common

Research

Romanization

References

See also