Submitted Surname Revision History

Before Genghis Khan conquered the world, he conquered his neighbors, and his last great victory, in 1204, was over a tribe of Turkic Christians called the Naiman. (Some Naimans today are Christian but most are Jewish.) There are other possible origins for the name, but I can offer one (flimsy) piece of evidence for this one: Conquered tribes were typically absorbed in the Khan's army, and you can follow the line of its conquests directly from Mongolia to Chernigov Gibernya in the Ukraine when my father was born--with straight black hair and the hint of an epicanthic fold--700 years later. ("Naim" means "eight" in Mongolian, and possibly also in Turkic languages, which are closely related. Mongolian tribes and their neighbors were heavily into numerology.)