Before "Nihon" came into official use, Japan was known in China as "Wa" () or "Wakoku" (). The name was first used during the third-century Three Kingdoms period, and can be translated as "dwarf" or "submissive". Japanese scribes found fault with its offensive connotation, and in the native name for Japan, "Yamato", the character for "Wa" was replaced with the homophone ("peaceful, harmonious"). "Wa" was often combined with ("great") to form the name , which is read as "Yamato". The earliest record of appears in the Chinese "Old Book of Tang", which notes the change in 703 when Japanese envoys requested that its name be changed. It is believed that the name change within Japan itself took place sometime between 665 and 703. During the Heian period, was gradually replaced by , which was first pronounced with the Chinese reading "Nippon" and later as "Nihon", reflecting shifts in phonology in Early Modern Japanese.