Uyghurs
Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for eastern Turkestan or southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article "Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism". Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq, and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used by them to refer to themselves, the various native names Altishahris used to refer to themselves were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki, and Musulmān (Muslim), the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris would exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz when referring to themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby has also noted that the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people felt themselves as a separate group from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.
Uyghurs
Since Islam reached them much after Altishahr, personal names of non-Islamic Old Uyghur origin are still used in Qumul and Turfan while people in Altishahr use mostly Islamic names of Persian and Arabic origin. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, many Uyghurs who studied in Soviet Central Asia added Russian suffixes to Russify their surnames and make them look Russian. Names from Russia and Europe are used in Qaramay and Urumchi by part of the population of city-dwelling Uyghurs. Others use names with hard to understand etymologies, with the majority dating from the Islamic era and being of Persian or Arabic derivation.