In the 21st century, historians like Mladen Ančić (2013) and Neven Budak (2018) in their research and synthesis of Croatian history concluded that the Avar linguistic argumentation is unconvincing and the historical sources poorly support such a thesis, emphasizing rather the Frankish origin of the title. Ančić emphasized that Avarian derivation is related to cultural and political ideologization since the 19th century which avoided any association with Germanization and German heritage. According to him, the title and its functions directly derive from a Germanic medieval term "ban" or "bannum", the royal power of raising of armies and the exercise of justice later delegated to the counts, which was widely used in Francia. Archaeologist Vladimir Sokol (2007) independently came to a very similar conclusion relating it to the influence of Franks during their control of Istria and Liburnia. In 2013, historian Tomislav Bali noted the possible connection of the title with the military and territorial administrative unit "bandon" of the Byzantine Empire. The unit term derives, like the Greek "bandon" (from the 6th century) and Latin "bandus" and "bandum" (from the 9th century; banner), from the Gothic "bandwō", a military term used by the troops who had Germanic or fought against Germanic peoples. Bali considered that the Croatian rulers possibly were influenced by the Byzantine model in the organization of the territory and borrowed the terminology and that such thesis can be related to Sokol's arguing of Western influence.