Bai people call themselves "Bai Zi", "Bai Ni" and "Bai Gang", which means "Bai" in Chinese. There are more than 60 nicknames of Bai people, including Jia Min, Nama and Lemo. Bai people living in Dali, Kunming and Sangzhi, Hunan Province, are called "Jia Min" in Chinese. The Bai people living in Lijiang, Diqing and Nujiang are called "Nama" in Naxi language and "Lemo" in Lisu nationality. Tibetan is called "Laibo" and Yi is called "Loubu", "Robben" and "Rocky Slope". Bai people in Guizhou have different names, such as "seven surnames", "nine surnames", "Luoju", "Longjiang people" and "Nanjing people". The Bai people in Weining, Guizhou, are called "people with seven surnames" because they have seven surnames.
According to documents, the ancestors of the Bai nationality are a mixture of native Kunming people, Heman people around Erhai Lake, Miao and Qiang people in the south of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and some ethnic groups such as Bo people, Yi people, Bo people, Ailao people, Yunnan people and Han people. Before Yuan Dynasty, some ancestors of Bai nationality, Yi nationality and Dai nationality were called "Bai Man", "Wu Man", "Shang Yi", "Xia Yi", "Bai Yi" and "Bo Yi" in the name of "Man" and "Yi". After the Yuan Dynasty, people with cultural attributes close to the Han nationality were recognized as a nation and called "white people". "White" is the earliest unified name of Bai ancestors today, and it was called "Min Jia" after Ming and Qing Dynasties. After the founding of New China, 1956, 1 1 June, according to the wishes of the majority of Bai people, "Bai" was officially confirmed as a unified national name.
The Bai nationality is the largest ethnic minority in China 15, mainly distributed in Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and other provinces, among which the Bai nationality in Yunnan Province has the largest population and mainly lives in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. In addition, it is also distributed in Sichuan and Chongqing.
Bai nationality has its own national language, and Bai language belongs to Yi branch of Tibeto-Burman language family of Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese has been widely used by Bai people since ancient times. Bai nationality is unique in art, and its architecture, sculpture and painting art are famous all over the world. In the process of its formation and development, it interacted with neighboring nationalities and created splendid economy and culture.
Bai nationality is a nationality with a high degree of living, with three branches of Jia Min, Lemo and Nama, which are deeply influenced by China culture.