"The Hephthalites (also spelled Ephthalites) were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th–6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. According to Chinese chronicles, they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun.[1] Elsewhere they were called White Huns, known to the Greeks as Hephthalite and the Indians as the Sveta Huns/Turushkas.[2] It is likely that they spoke an East Iranian language." - Eivind from Bookmarklet

"They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them as living in Dzungaria around AD 125[citation needed]. Chinese chronicles state that they were originally a tribe of the Yuezhi, living to the north of the Great Wall, and subject to the Rouran (Jwen-Jwen), as were some Turkic peoples at the time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they named themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to (厌带夷栗陁, or more briefly Ye-tha 嚈噠),[20] after their royal family, which descended from one of the five Yuezhi families which also included the Kushan. They displaced the Scythians and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before AD 425. After that, they crossed the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia. In Persia, they were initially held off by Bahram Gur but around AD 483–85, they succeeded in making Persia a tributary state.[citation needed] After a series of wars in the period AD 503–513, they were driven out of Persia and completely defeated in AD 557 by Khosrau I. Their polity thereafter came under the Göktürks. The Hephtalites also invaded the regions of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, continuing deep into Northern India and succeeded in extending their domain to include the Western India. They were eventually driven out of India in 528 AD by a Hindu coalition oconsisting of Gupta emperor Narasimhagupta and the king Yashodharman from Malwa." - Eivind