Why is my last name 'Khan' if I am not a Pashtun?

[FreekiN]

lol its ok. just seems as if people cant be mature about something. oh well.

 

[Imran Khan]

or kon kon khan hai bhai ?

 

[Areesh]

I have always wondered why my last name is Khan even though there is not a single person in my family that is Pashtun.

Every time I ask my mom, she says we are straight up 'Punjabi.' But that doesn't answer my question. I ask my dad and he says pretty much says the same thing.

So I did a little backtracking of my family history up to some time before the partition.

I came up with this:
My mothers side of the family is almost completely from Amritsar in British India and my fathers side is scattered from several parts of the British Indian side of Punjab and from Rajasthan.

Does this answer my question? I have no freekin idea.

Is there anything else I should get to know of that can answer my question?

Answer is simple. Because you didn't find a better surname.

 

[Forrest Griffin]

on the bright side at least your surname wasn't Bin Laden.

 

[secularguy]

!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~DELETED FOR OT~~~~~~~~~~~~!

 

[Pakistani_Athiest]

you do know that having "girl" in Islam is forbidden.

Cool story bro.

 

[Crypto]

HI Guys,
just to add my two cents, i have a friend here who is not pathan but his name has Khan in it and i inquired curiously how come?

He replied "there are two words in Urdu Khan with a noon and Khan with Noon Guna where N (noon) is sort of silent". The first word Khan (with noon) is from pathans however the later is a title (with noon Guna) and lots of Punjabi and others use that as well.

However when we write in english both words have same spellings hence everyone pronouncing Khan, if you write in urdu than you will notice the difference But Khan being a popular word/name it is widely used despite the right word bieng Khan (without really saying Noon)..

I tried my best to explain i hope it make some sense.

 

[Frankenstein]

LoL, My last name is Shaikh but for real its Khan tho Im not a Pashtun myself, kinda weird

 

[ahmed_naj]

My cast is Kakazai which is associated with a tribe..
My mom's side call themselves Khan but my dad's side calls them Malik...However, my great grand father (dad's side) was Khan..

cool, my mom is also a Kakazai Khan and my dad is a Malik.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

cool, my mom is also a Kakazai Khan and my dad is a Malik.

ahan!
cool

 

[T-Faz]

Cool story bro.

No he is correct, it is haram to have a girl in Islam.

He should hand her over to me, or he can make her halal by making her become a ninja.

 

[FreekiN]

No he is correct, it is haram to have a girl in Islam.

He should hand her over to me, or he can make her halal by making her become a ninja.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

No he is correct, it is haram to have a girl in Islam.

He should hand her over to me, or he can make her halal by making her become a ninja.

Shytiest post ever
Wat if somebdy posts the same comment about ur female family members?HALAL?NINJA?F....ng retarded

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

...and the marriages and shyt is bakwwas...............do some research buddy even now real punjabi families dont marry outside there own caste.though im not punjabi but i like to speak the truth
Thanks hope freak got it right

I did some researcher and found such marriages did happened.

Putative ancestry
Further information: Pathans of Punjab and Pathans of Rajasthan

There are various communities who claim Pashtun or Afghan descent but are largely found among other groups in South and Central Asia who generally do not speak the Pashto language. These communities are often considered overlapping groups or are simply assigned to the ethno-linguistic group that corresponds to their geographic location and mother tongue. They include various non-Pashtun Afghans who often speak Persian rather than Pashto.[3]
Many claimants of Pashtun heritage in South Asia have mixed with local Muslim populations and refer to themselves (and to Pashto-speaking Pashtuns) as "Pathans", the Hindi-Urdu variant of Pashtun.[79][80] These populations are usually partial Pashtun, to varying degrees, and often trace their Pashtun ancestry putatively through a paternal lineage.

The Hindkowans share both Pashtun and Punjabi cultures, and as a result they are sometimes referred to as Punjabi Pashtuns.[81] The Hindkowans speak Hindko language and are considered to have mixed Pashtun and local origins.[82] They are a large minority in major cities such as Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan, and Dera Ismail Khan and in mixed districts including Haripur, Abbottabad and Attock, where they are often bilingual in Hindko and Pashto.

Some Indians claim descent from Pashtun soldiers who settled in India by marrying local women during the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent.[18] No specific population figures exist, as claimants of Pashtun descent are spread throughout the country. Notably, the Rohilla Pashtuns, after their defeat by the British, are known to have settled in parts of North India and intermarried with local ethnic groups. They are believed to have been bilingual in Pashto and Urdu until the mid-19th century. Some Urdu-speaking Muslims claiming descent from Pashtuns moved to Pakistan after independence in 1947. Also, the repression of Rohilla Pashtuns by the British in the late 19th century caused thousands to flee to the Dutch colony of Guyana and Suriname in South America.[83]

During the mid-19th century, around the time when the British were accepting peasants from across India as indentured servants to work in the Caribbean, South Africa and Fiji, some Pashtuns from the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, were sent to places as far as Trinidad, Surinam and Guyana (see above) and Fiji, to work with other Indians (Hindu and Muslim) on the sugarcane fields and perform manual labor. During this period, many immigrants from India stayed on in these places and formed unique communities of their own where ethnic distinctions were often blurred, save for religious ones. Most of the Pashtun migrants ended up mixing in with the other South Asian Muslim nationalities to form a common Indian Muslim community in tandem with the larger Indian community, losing their distinctive heritage. Their descendants mostly speak Urdu or English and are no longer conversant in Pashto.

Pashtun people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bang Galore]

Not to worry. Some of the greatest "Khans" weren't Pashtun either - Genghis Khan & Kublai Khan. Actually they weren't even Muslims either. From what I gather, their descendants far outnumber any Pashtun tribe. So a lot of people can technically call themselves "Khan".