A tribe Parnaki is attested in Iron Age Assyrian texts

A tribe Parnaki is attested in Iron Age Assyrian texts (Esarhadon period) in North East of modern Iraq.

 I crushed the wicked Parnaki, who live in the land Tīl-Aššurri, which is called Pittānu in the language of the people of the land Meḫrānu.

This tribal name is remarkable because the name P'arnak (Փառնակ) is present in the Khorenatsi's list of patriarchs. It can be found also in toponyms. Such as Kusti-Parnes in Artsakh and P'arnac' in Sasun region and Parnatun. It's not granted that all these terms derive from the same origin. Nevertheless, it's another example when we see that terms that appear in Khorenatsi are not simply random names. Or names that appear only after Achaemenid empire.

There is not much doubt that Pharnacids in Phrygian satrapy or probably Pharnaces in Pontic kingdom derive their name from Achaemenid influence and dynasty. But this tribe's example shows that some of the cases when Parnak is mentioned were already present in the vicinity of historic Armenia before Persian rule. It's even possible that some offshoots of this Parnaki tribe became rulers of Armenia, Pharnavaz for instance.

The name P'arnak is usually derived from the Iranian word farnah meaning glory. It's remarkable that the closest form is the Ossetian and the reconstructed Scythian *farna. Even though its not clear how the shift to [f] occurred. In Armenian the Iranian [f] was rendered as p' փ։

See also

• The King Pharnavaz (Փառնավազ)