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skooby

Khan as a surname

Sometime I read about bollywood actors over the net.

here are some names i've collected:

Sharukh Khan, Salman Khan, Sohail Khan and as a bonus- German footballer, Oliver Kahn.

Why do these people using the surname of Khan ? are they all descendants of Genghis Khan?

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history, names, mongolia, surname, genghis khan

# Posted 2 years ago
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becky

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Khan is a popular surname among Pathan Muslims, but has nothing in particular to do with the Mongols.

As for the German 'Kahn', it is of Jewish origin and means 'priest' in Hebrew. It is also often spelled as Kohn or Cohen.

Khan is not a Mongol surname. It is a title used by the ruler, like 'king' in England. The difference is that in England and elsewhere, there are many people with the surname 'king', even though they are not descended from kings.

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Sanjeev

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Only monkeys don't fall off trees

"Khan" in the Steppe language generally means a "king" for a tribal confederation. It's transliterated into chinese as "kehan". In the altaic-turkic language, it's often called "Kaghan". Thus "Khan" is not a surname, but merely the term for a leader of a tribe.

Note that Mongols are not the only people to use "Khan", the turks, the Xianbei, the Uighurs all had leaders having the title of "Khan". Only Xiongnu referred to their leader as "Chanyu" rather than Khan.

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