The two main branches of the family, one descended from Bumin and the other from his brother Istämi, ruled over the eastern and western parts of the Göktürk confederation, respectively, forming the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603).

[10][19] According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, and Lung) the Ashina tribe was descended from the Tiele confederation,[20][21][22][23][24] who were likewise associated with the Xiongnu.

[27][28] However, Lee & Kuang (2017) state that Chinese histories did not describe the Ashina-led Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or belonging to the Tiele confederation.

A. Muratov,[38] S. P. Guschin,[39] and András Róna-Tas[40] have posited that the term Ashina ultimately descends from an Indo-European source, possibly Tocharian or from one of the many Eastern Iranian tribal groups, such as the Saka and Wusun.

[41] Jonathan Ratcliffe supports this theory citing numerous academics that the Ashina ethnic core could have been Indo-Iranian culturally, speaking Sogdian or variant of Tocharian.

[43][44] This idea is seconded by Hungarian researcher András Róna-Tas, who finds it plausible "that we are dealing with a royal family and clan of Saka origin".

In the view of Louis Bazin, this knowledge was being suppressed in the Second Turkic Khaganate period by the Türkic nationalist policies of Bilge Qaghan.

[49][50] The name "Ashina" was recorded in ancient Muslim chronicles in these forms: Aś(i)nas (al-Tabari), Ānsa (Hudud al-'Alam), Śaba (Ibn Khordadbeh), Śana, Śaya (Al-Masudi).

He further links *A-ši-na to the Xiongnu title 閼氏, which was pronounced *′ât-zie in Late Middle Chinese,[b] meant "wife of a ruler", and might be derived from *aš / eš, *azhi / *ezhi < *ašïn / *ešin, and *azhïn / *ezhin, further from Tungusic *Aši < *asun / *asi < *hasun < *khasu < *kasun < *katsun and Turko-Mongolic *Ači < ačun < *hatun < khatun < katun.

[29] However according to Lee & Kuang (2017), the Göktürks differed from the Qirghiz in their physiognomy and "no comparable depiction of the Kök Türks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories.

[83][84] However, a complete genetic analysis of Muqan Qaghan's daughter Empress Ashina (551–582) in 2023 by Xiaoming Yang et al. found nearly exclusively Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry (97,7%) next to minor West-Eurasian components (2,3%), and no Chinese ("Yellow River") admixture.

[85] According to Chinese historian Xue Zongzheng, the original Ashina tribe members had physical features that were quite different from those of East Asian people.

[91][92] Turkish historian Emel Esin noted that "the members of the Kök-Türk dynasty, and particularly Köl Tigin, had frankly Mongoloid features", probably as a result of repeated marriages.

[93] She also wrote that members of the Ashina tribe sought to marry Chinese nobles, "perhaps in the hope of finding an occasion to claim rulership over China, or because the high birth of the mother warranted seniority".

[95][96][97] American historian Peter Golden has reported that Y-DNA genetic testing of the proposed descendants of the Ashina tribe does seem to confirm a link to the Indo-Iranians, emphasizing that "the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations".