A Textual Research on "A'gan"

Reading、looking up and researching a quantity of reference books and local documents,the authors clarify the meaning and etymology of A'gan(阿干) after which some of place names are derived and originated such as:A'gan zhen(town)A'gan xian(county)A'gan bu/bao(fortress)A'gan shan(hill)A'gan lin(mountain)A'gan shui(water)A'gan yu(valley)A'gan guan(pass) and find out that A'gan,from an ancient language named xianbei,means elder brother and has the same pronunciation with the word wogan(沃干).It was once believed that firstly used as a place name with the meaning of elder brother was after the ballad of A'gan written by Mu Rongshi which the authors of this article don't agree because the word wogan(沃干) first appeared in the book of The History of the Three Kingdoms,earlier than ballad of A'gan.