Son of Khan

[stoutfellow]

This I did not know; I learned it courtesy of a comment by SFReader, in response to a Language Hat post on the name "Ben Hur".

The wife of Temujin (later called Genghis Khan), Borte, was kidnapped by the Merkit tribe. He responded by assembling a coalition of other Mongol tribes and defeating the Merkits. His wife, when freed, was pregnant. Soon afterward, she gave birth to a child, Temujin's first, who was given the name "Juchi", a word meaning "guest" or "the unexpected one". Like most Mongols, Juchi had dark hair; but Temujin, like the rest of his clan, was blond. Temujin accepted Juchi as his son; but when his second son was born, blond like his father, the child was given the name "Chagaatai", which may be translated as "Whitey".

(It may be worth noting that primogeniture was not the custom among the Mongols; lateral succession and ultimogeniture were more common.)

Comments

[ndrosen]

I knew about most of this, but if I ever read the part about hair color, and the meaning of the second son’s name, I did not recall it.

[stoutfellow]

Actually, most historians dispute the bit about hair color, but the claim is made in the Secret History of the Mongols and in Rashid al-Din's Compendium of Chronicles.