Vietnamese name


Vietnamese names generally consist of two components including a "surname" and a "given name", follow the Eastern name order:
However, not every name is conformant. For example:
  • Nguyễn Trãi has his surname Nguyễn and his primary name is Trãi. He does not have any [|middle name].
  • Phạm Bình Minh has his surname Phạm and his primary name is Bình Minh. He does not have any middle name, although Bình is often mistaken for one.
  • Văn Quyết">Wen (surname 文)">Văn Quyết has his surname Nguyễn, his middle name is Văn and his primary name is Quyết.
  • Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn has his surname Nguyễn, his middle name is Ngọc and his primary name is Trường Sơn
  • Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ has her surname Lâm, her middle name is Thị and her primary name is Mỹ Dạ. Her husband, Hoàng Phủ Ngọc Tường, has his surname is Hoàng Phủ, his middle name is Ngọc and his primary name is Tường. As almost every Vietnamese surname is monosyllablic, his surname is usually confused with Hoàng, leading to their two daughters being named as Hoàng Dạ Thi and Hoàng Dạ Thư instead of Hoàng Phủ Dạ Thi and Hoàng Phủ Dạ Thư.
  • Trần [Lê Quốc Toàn] has his surname Trần, his first middle name Lê is derived from his mother's surname, his second middle name is Quốc and his primary name is Toàn.
The "family name first" written order is usual throughout the East Asian cultural sphere which Vietnam is a part of. Persons can be referred to by the whole name, the primary name, or a hierarchic pronoun, which usually connotes a degree of family relationship or kinship – but referring via the primary name is most common, as well as if degree of family relationship or kinship is unknown. In more informal contexts or in the Western world, the primary name can be written first then surname e.g. Tam Dinh or Khoa Tran.
The Vietnamese language is tonal and so are Vietnamese names. Names with the same spelling but different tones represent different meanings, which can confuse people when the diacritics are dropped, as is commonly done outside Vietnam vs Doãn, both become Doan when diacritics are omitted). Additionally, due to homonymy, some Vietnamese names can only be distinguished through context or by reference to their corresponding chữ Hán, such as 南 or 男, both are read as Nam. Anyone applying for Vietnamese nationality must also adopt a Vietnamese name. Vietnamese names have corresponding Hán character adopted early on during Chinese rule|Chinese rule]. The modern Vietnamese writing system, chữ Quốc ngữ, popularized during the French colonial era, is fully romanized and has replaced the earlier, Chinese character–based script, chữ Nôm.

Surnames

The surname is positioned first and is passed on by the father to his children in a traditionally patrilineal order, but exceptions are possible. It is estimated that there are around 100 surnames in common use, but some are far more common than others. The name Nguyễn was estimated to be the most common in 2005. The reason the top three names are so common is that people tended to take the surnames of emperors, to show loyalty to particular dynasties in history. Over many generations, those surnames became permanent.

History

Some scholars argue that all Vietnamese surnames are of Chinese origin, introduced during the thousand-year Chinese occupation of Vietnam, which began in 111 BCE with the Han Dynasty. Prior to this, evidence of distinct Vietnamese surnames is scarce due to a lack of written records. An alternative view suggests that Vietnamese surnames include both indigenous names and those borrowed from Chinese culture. Hypotheses propose that indigenous surnames may have evolved from place-names in the Red River delta or from traditional totems. Historically, individuals sometimes adopted the surname of the ruling dynasty as a sign of loyalty, or were compelled to do so, particularly after dynastic changes. For example, during the Trần dynasty, individuals with the surname Lý were ordered to change their surname to Nguyễn. The Nguyễn dynasty further contributed to the prevalence of the Nguyễn surname. Additionally, surnames were sometimes changed to evade taxes, avoid penalties, or adhere to royal name taboos.
Vietnamese surnames also have origins from other ethnic groups, including Chinese, Khmer, Cham, and various ethnic minorities.

Common surnames

The following are the most common surnames among Vietnamese, with their chữ Quốc ngữ spelling, and their corresponding Hán-Nôm characters. The figures are from a 2022 study 100 họ phổ biến ở Việt Nam from the Vietnamese Social Science Publisher. In 2005, these 14 names had accounted for around 90% of the Vietnamese population.
RankSurnamePronunciation Chữ Hán-NômPercentage Percentage
1Nguyễn阮38.4%31.5%
2Lê ~ 黎10.3%10.9%
3Trần ~ 陳8.2%8.9%
4Vũ / Võ / 武6.7%5.9%
5Phạm范5.5%5.1%
6Hoàng / Huỳnh / 潘4%2.8%
8Trương~張2.0%2.2%
9Bùi裴2.5%2.1%
10Đỗ杜3.1%1.9%
11Đặng鄧2.1%1.9%
12Ngô吳1.3%1.7%
13Hồ胡1.3%1.5%
14Dương楊1%1.4%
15Lý李0.8%1.0%
Other11.7%16.3%

The following list includes less-common surnames in alphabetical order which make up the other 10%, now 16.3% :

Other

In Vietnamese culture, women keep their surnames after marriage. Even though it is not required by law, children usually bear the father’s surname. After the French colonial period, there emerged a trend in which someone is given a middle name derived from the mother’s surname as a gesture of respect and remembrance.
In more casual contexts, people are always on a "first-name basis", which involves their primary names, accompanied by proper kinship terms.

Given names

The given name is consist of an optional middle name and a mandatory primary name.

Middle name (padding name)

Middle name in Vietnamese is optional. Although often placed in the "middle" position, Vietnamese middle name has a very different role and usage compared to Western one: as the word is used to supplement the primary name, it cannot be used independently and must be used together with the primary name when addressing a person. Therefore, middle name in Vietnamese is considered part of the given name.
  • For example, Jacob Harry Marguire is commonly known as "Harry Marguire" and he can be addressed simply by his middle name "Harry". Or Andrea Kimi Antonelli is commonly known as "Kimi Antonelli" and he can be addressed simply by his middle name "Kimi". However in Vietnamese custom, Nguyễn Văn Toàn is never addressed by his middle name "Văn" but often by primary name "Toàn", even though he is commonly known as given name "Văn Toàn".
Most Vietnamese people have a monosyllablic middle name, but it is also quite common to have multisyllable or none at all such as Tô Lâm. Semantically, a middle name can stand alone, but it is usually combined with the primary name to form a more meaningful full name, where the middle name functions as part of the primary name.
In the past, the middle name was selected by parents from a fairly narrow range of options. Almost all women had Thị as their middle name, and many men had Văn. More recently, a broader range of names has been used, and people named Thị usually omit their middle name because they do not like to call it with their name. For example, singer Hồ Ngọc Hà has birthname "Hồ Thị Ngọc Hà". Thị is a most common female middle name, and most common amongst pre-1975 generation but less common amongst younger generations. Thị is an archaic Sino-Vietnamese suffix meaning "clan; family; lineage; hereditary house" and attached to a woman's original surname, but now is used to simply indicate the female sex. For example, the name "Trần Thị Mai Loan" means "Mai Loan, a female person of the Trần family". Some traditional male middle names may include Văn, Hữu, Đức, Thành, Công, Minh, and Quang.
The middle name can have several uses:
  1. To indicate a person's generation. Brothers and sisters may share the same middle name, which distinguish them from the generation before them and the generation after them.
  2. To separate branches of a large family: "Nguyễn Hữu", "Nguyễn Sinh", "Trần Lâm". However, this usage is still controversial. Some people consider them to be a part of their surnames, not surname + middle name. Some families may, however, set up arbitrary rules about giving a different middle name to each generation.
  3. To indicate a person's position in the family. This usage is less common than others.
  4. To provide a poetic and positive meaning. E.g. "Trần Gia Hạnh Phúc" meaning "Happiness to the Trần family".
  5. Some children take the father’s surname, their middle name is derived from the mother's surname as a gesture of respect and remembrance. E.g. Trần "Lê" Quốc Toàn, Cao "Pendant" Quang Vinh.
The first three are not as common in the present-day as they are seen as too rigid and strictly conforming to family naming systems. Most middle names utilise the fourth, having a name to simply imply some positive characteristics.

Primary name

In most cases, the middle name is formally part of the primary name. For example, the name "Đinh Quang Dũng" is separated into the surname "Đinh" and the primary name "Quang Dũng". In a normal name list, those two parts of the full name are put in two different columns. However, in daily conversation, the last syllable in a primary name with a title before it is used to call or address a person: "Ông Dũng", "Anh Dũng", etc., with "Ông" and "Anh" being words to address the person and depend on age, social position, etc.
The primary name is the primary form of address for Vietnamese. It is chosen by parents and usually has a literal meaning in the Vietnamese language. Names often represent beauty, such as bird or flower names, or attributes and characteristics that the parents want in their child, such as modesty.
Typically, Vietnamese will be addressed with their primary name, even in formal situations, although an honorific equivalent to "Mr.", "Mrs.", etc. will be added when necessary. That contrasts with the situation in many other cultures in which the surname is used in formal situations, but it is a practice similar to usage in Icelandic usage and, to some degree, Polish. It is similar to the Latin-American and southern European custom of referring to women as "Doña/Dona" and men as "Don/Dom", along with their first name.
Addressing someone by the surname is rare in the current. In the past, women were usually called by their surname, with thị as a suffix, similar to China and Korea. In recent years, doctors are more likely than any other social group to be addressed by their surname, but that form of reference is more common in the north than in the south. Some extremely famous people are sometimes referred to by their surnames regardless of whether the name is an alias, such as Hồ Chí Minh , Trịnh Công Sơn, and Hồ Xuân Hương. Traditionally, people in Vietnam, particularly North Vietnam, addressed parents using the first child's name.
When being addressed within the family, children are sometimes referred to by their birth number, starting with one in the north but two in the south. That practice is less common recently, especially in the north.
Double names are also common. For example:
  • italic= has the primary name italic=. She doesn't have any middle name, although "Mỹ" is often mistaken for one.
  • italic= has the primary name italic=. She has a middle name "Thị", however "Kim" is also often mistaken for an additional one.

Non-traditional names

Foreign names

If either the father or mother is a foreigner and is married to a Vietnamese citizen, and their child is born in Vietnam and registered with Vietnamese nationality from the outset, the child may take the surname of either the foreign parent or the Vietnamese parent, however, the given name must be Vietnamese, such as "Smith Tuấn Anh" is acceptable, but "Nguyễn David" is not. For those born abroad who wish to acquire Vietnamese citizenship, they may keep their foreign name after becoming Vietnamese citizens, such as "Hoàng Vũ Samson", "Huỳnh Kesley Alves", "Nguyễn Filip", "Cao Pendant Quang Vinh".

Saints' names

are given a saint's name at baptism. Boys are given male saints' names, while girls are given female saints' names. This name appears first, before the surname, in formal religious contexts. Out of respect, clergy are usually referred to by saints' name. The saint's name also functions as a posthumous name, used instead of an individual's personal name in prayers after their death. The most common saints' names are taken from the New Testament, such as Phêrô, Phaolô, Gioan, Maria, and Anna or they may remain as they are without Vietnamisation.
Saints' names are respelled phonetically according to the Vietnamese alphabet. Some more well-known saints' names are derived further into names that sound more Vietnamese or easier to pronounce for Vietnamese speakers.
SaintName in Romance languageVietnamese names
Alexander I|Alexander]Alexandre A Lịch Sơn, Alexanđê
AndrewAndré An-rê
AnthonyAntônio Antôn, Antôniô
BenedictBenedictus Bênêđictô, Biển Đức
Clement I|Clement]Clemente Clêmêntê, Lê Minh
ConstantineConstantino Constantinô, Công Tăng
DominicDomingos Đôminicô, Dumingô, Đa Minh
FrancisFrancisco Phanchicô, Phanxicô
HelenaHelena Hà Liên
IgnatiusInácio, Ignacio Inhaxiô, Y Nhã, I-na-xu
John the BaptistJuan Bautista Gio-an Baotixita
JosephGiuseppe Giuse
MartinMartinus, Martinho Martinô, Máctinô, Mạc Tính, Mạc Ty Nho
Mary MagdaleneMaria Madalena Ma-ri-a Ma-đa-lê-na
PaulPaulus, Paulo Phaolô, Bảo Lộc
ThaddaeusTadeu Tađêô, Thanh Diêu
Urban I|Urban]Urbanus, Urbano Urbanô, Ước Bang

Near-homonyms distinguished by vowel or tones

Some names may appear the same if simplified into a basic ASCII script, as for example on websites, but are different names:
Typically, as in the above examples, it is middle or the last primary name which varies, as almost any Hán-Nôm character may be used. The number of surnames is limited.
Further, some historical names may be written using different chữ Hán, but are still written the same in the modern Vietnamese alphabet.

Presentation in English

Indexing, sorting and name order reversal

Due to foreigners’ limited familiarity with writing and typing Vietnamese diacritics, and to avoid encoding errors that may corrupt font display, Vietnamese names are often written without diacritics in English, such as "Ho Chi Minh" instead of "Hồ Chí Minh", "Vo Nguyen Giap" instead of "Võ Nguyên Giáp". However, this may lead to pronunciation distortions that even Vietnamese speakers cannot accurately verify when the name is transliterated back into Vietnamese with diacritics. For example, surname Đoàn vs Doãn, both become Doan when diacritics are omitted and can only distinguish by IPA or respelling for English|respelling].
Based on the Vietnamese custom of addressing individuals by the last monosyllable of their primary name, the English-language Chicago Manual of Style indexes Vietnamese names according to the "primary-name, surname middle-name", with a cross-reference placed in regards to the surname. Ngô Đình Diệm would be listed as "Diem, Ngo Dinh" and Võ Nguyên Giáp would be listed as "Giap, Vo Nguyen". In Vietnamese-language sources, names are also generally organized in this manner.
However, indexing the name in the form "Giap, Vo Nguyen" can be misleading as it suggests that "Võ Nguyên" is the surname. Likewise, when the comma is omitted such as "Giap Vo Nguyen", it may also confuse Western readers by implying that the middle name "Nguyên" is the "last name" because it appears at the end of the name, whereas in reality the person’s actual surname is solely "Võ". Nowadays, to avoid problems caused by mistakes with surnames, Vietnamese names in English are commonly indexed according to "middle-name primary-name surname" in the Western order such as "Nguyen Giap Vo" instead of "Giap Vo Nguyen", to determine exactly the surname "Vo", which corresponds to the true "last name" in English texts. At the very least, this helps Western readers identify the correct surname "Võ", rather than mistaking the middle name "Nguyen" for the surname and confusing it with "Nguyễn".
  • In recent years, many English-language sports programs and events have visually emphasized surnames by through bolding or all capitalization such as "Nguyen Giap VO". However, even when emphasis is applied, but mistakenly highlighting with the middle name as well can still cause misunderstanding among readers, due to the custom of addressing people by the final syllable of the primary name in Vietnamese culture. For example, emphasizing incorrectly such as "Giap VO NGUYEN" or "VO NGUYEN Giap" may be misinterpreted as a compound surnames, whereas the correct emphasis should be "Nguyen Giap VO" or "VO Nguyen Giap", because surname is solely "Võ". Similarly, in instances of alphabetization by surname with comma according to the "surname, given name", his name must be indexed correctly as "Vo, Nguyen Giap", and not as "Vo Nguyen, Giap".
  • * During in Olympics, name of swimmer Nguyễn Thị Ánh Viên was incorrectly displayed on TV on-screen graphics as "Vien NGUYEN THI ANH" at the Rio 2016 and "Anh Vien NGUYEN THI ANH" at the Tokyo 2020. Her name must be displayed correctly as "Thi Anh Vien NGUYEN" or "NGUYEN Thi Anh Vien", because her surname is solely "Nguyễn".
  • The traditional Eastern order, such as "Vo Nguyen Giap", is also applied, mainly when using English in Vietnam. However in Olympics' events, while Chinese, Korean, Japanese athletes' name is displayed in the format of "SURNAME Given-name", Vietnamese athletes' name is still displayed in "Given-name SURNAME" on TV on-screen graphics, due to Vietnam has not yet been included in the countries list of Use and rules of each participant name > TV Name "Switching" in the document Language Guidelines & Participant Names of the Olympic Data Feed, which has included almost countries in the East Asian cultural sphere such as China, Korea, and Japan. Conversely, in almost badminton tournaments of BWF's system, some players' name from Vietnam is displayed in the traditional Eastern order, while Japan's one is not.
  • * For example, name of badminton player Nguyễn Thuỳ Linh is displayed as "Thuy Linh NGUYEN" in Olympics and "NGUYEN Thuy Linh" in BWF's tournaments.
Due to the high frequency of the same surnames in Vietnamese names, it has also become more popular to be referred by given name in English. For example, Nguyễn Tiến Minh can be referred to as " Tiến Minh" or simply as " Minh". Addressing by surname such as " Nguyễn" is also used, but less commonly when using English in Vietnam.
Additionally, there are certain cases in which Vietnamese personal names when written in full-name form in English, are rearranged symmetrically around the middle name by swapping the surname and the final syllable of the given name, following the English-style order of "first-middle-last". This stems from a confusion that Vietnamese middle names, due to be located at the "middle", would be equivalent to Western middle names. For example, Võ Nguyên Giáp is reodered as "Giap Nguyen Vo", Trần Lê Quốc Toàn is reodered as "Toan Le Quoc Tran". However, as mentioned earlier, the issue here is not about its position, but the fundamentally different ways in which Vietnamese middle names and Western middle names are used. Vietnamese middle names are not used independently but serve only to complement the primary name; therefore, it should precede the primary name. If not, this arrangement breaks the standard structure of Vietnamese given name such as "Giap Nguyen" and "Toan Le Quoc". Moreover, this ordering can lead to misunderstandings when dealing with different types of official documents. For instance, some forms provide a dedicated "Middle Name" field, while others do not, this may result in the given name being recorded as "Giap Nguyen" or "Giap" in a document, while being recorded as "Nguyen Giap" in another.
Consequently, when a Vietnamese personal name is written in full-name form following Western order, it is often recommended that it should be reordered in "middle-name primary-name surname", meaning just focus on that only the surname needs to be moved to the last position, while the given name should be left as is, such as Võ Nguyên Giáp is reodered as "Nguyen Giap Vo", Trần Lê Quốc Toàn is reodered as "Le Quoc Toan Tran". Along with this, when filling in name fields, it is advisable to leave the "Middle Name" field blank and enter the entire "middle-name primary-name" sequence in the "First Name" field, this practice helps preserve the Vietnamese given name in its proper form, minimizes complications arising from inconsistent given name's monosyllables ordering across different documents, and remains consistent with cases of surname-based alphabetization using the "surname, given name" format, such as "Tran, Le Quoc Toan" instead of "Tran, Toan Le Quoc".

Abbreviation

There are three common types to abbreviate a Vietnamese name:
  1. Keep the last syllable in full, and abbreviate remains in initials.
  2. Keep the last two syllables in full, and abbreviate remains in initials.
  3. Keep surname in full, and abbreviate remains in initials. Often used in English if surname in full is mandatory.

Presentation in passport and paperworks

Since 2023, names in Vietnamese passports have been split into two lines: "surname" and "given names", with the middle name treated as a part with the primary name in order to match the format of "given names".
However, because almost all Vietnamese surnames are monosyllabic and little attention is given to compound surnames, the first syllable of a compound surname is often designated as the sole surname, while the second syllable is treated as a middle name. For example:
  • "Hoàng | Phủ Ngọc Tường" instead of "Hoàng Phủ | Ngọc Tường", due to confusion between Hoàng Phủ and Hoàng.
  • "Tôn | Nữ Thị Ninh" instead of "Tôn Nữ | Thị Ninh", due to confusion between Tôn Nữ and Tôn.
Vietnamese people do not have the practice of using hyphens or any other markers to indicate the "partition" of their names, and they may sometimes omit their middle names in Western contexts for simplified translation or presentation. The more syllables a name has, the more complicated it becomes to fill it into the required fields.
The following shows ways to fill Vietnamese names in Western paperwork. The entries highlighted in the green background indicate the recommended method which is to leave the "Middle Name" field blank and fill all parts of given name including "middle-name primary-name" into "First Name" field, to avoid issues such as surname confusion or incorrect order of Vietnamese given name in procedures like visa applications or airline ticketing.