Khitan names are the personal names of the Khitan people which ruled the Liao dynasty (907–1125) in ancient China and Kara-Khitan Khanate (1124–1218) in Central Asia.
A nomadic Mongolic people, the Khitans have been extinct, making research on their cultures difficult.
:[3] For first-born sons, the nickname is a variant of his father's Khitan courtesy name.
This patronymic practice is similar to that observed in some Mongolian names with whom the Khitans are distantly related.
Due to lack of better alternatives, currently Khitan names are transliterated alphabetically based on the pinyin spelling of the most common transliteration into Chinese characters.