KHAN Family History

This ancient surname has an ancestry which dates back to the earliest of known languages, the Indo-Persian of at least 4000 B.C. It is a contracted form of "Khagan", meaning chief or ruler, and was originally a title borne by the early Mongol leaders. Its most famous holder was the legendary Genghis Khan (see below), who in a twenty year period established the world's greatest empire stretching from Turkey to China. He was followed by his grandson, Kublai Khan, who added China to the Empire and established the Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1388).