The ethnonym "Alān" is a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian *"Aryāna", itself derived from the root "arya"-, meaning 'Aryan', the common self-designation of Indo-Iranian peoples. It probably came in use in the early history of the Alans for the purpose of uniting a heterogeneous group of tribes through the invocation of a common, ancestral 'Aryan' origin. Like the name of Iran (*"Aryānām"), the adjective *"aryāna" appears to be related to "Airyanəm Waēǰō" ('stretch of the Aryas'), the mythical homeland of the early Iranians mentioned in the "Avesta".