Noyan,
noyon (and some other spellings introduced via
Arabic texts; ) was a
title of authority in the
Mongol Empire and later periods. In modern Mongolic the word is used as a form of address similar to "
Mister" or "
Monsieur". Initially, it was a term for a
military commander in the army of
Genghis Khan: the term
noyon applied to commanders of
tumens and
mingghans, military units of 10,000 soldiers and 1000 soldiers respectively. During conquests,
noyons used to receive territories for administration and they effectively became Mongolian aristocracy, which existed until the 20th century.
Noyans were above the ordinary Mongols in social rank but below the descendants of Genghis and his brothers. They were sometimes called
emir or
bey in the
Ulus of Jochi, the
Ilkhanate and the
Chagatai Khanate while the
Yuan records gave the equivalent as
guanren since their main task was waging warfare.