“Sakha” is the endonym of the Yakuts, a Turkic people whose ancestors migrated to what is now Yakutia in the 14th-15th centuries, partly displacing, partly assimilating the Evenks, who had moved into the area earlier and who spoke the language of the Tungus-Manchurian group, and the aboriginal Yukagir tribes. In the 17th century Russians entered Yakutia and after decades of armed struggle conquered it. In the 18th century, most Yakuts were nominally Christianized, resulting in the spread of Russian names and surnames among them.