The most common family name is NGUYEN (阮), with approximately 40% of the Vietnamese population sharing this name. Other common family names include LE (黎), TRAN (陳), PHAM (范), PHAN (潘), HOANG (黃).
The 14 most popular surnames in Vietnam account for well over 90 percent of the population: they're Nguyen, Tran, Le, Pham, Hoang/Huynh, Phan, Vu/Vo, Dang, Bui, Do, Ho, Ngo, Duong, and Ly. The Vietnamese surname does not indicate much more than that you are Vietnamese.
The first mass-conversion of surnames took place during the 1230s when the Ly dynasty was overthrown by the Tran dynasty. In order to remove the Ly name from existence, those with the name were forced to change to Nguyen (the reason as to why Nguyen was chosen specifically is unknown).
A man born in 1992 in Ho Chi Minh City's Nha Be District called Le Hoang Hieu Nghia De Nhat Thuong Tam Nhan is considered to have the longest full name in Vietnam in terms with 35 letters.
Did you know that around 40% of all Vietnamese have Nguyễn as their surname?
"Nguyễn" is the transcription of the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of the character 阮 (Middle Chinese pronunciation: [ŋʉɐnX]), which originally was used to write a name of a state in Gansu. The same Chinese character is often romanized as Ruǎn in Mandarin and as Yuen in Cantonese.
Southern Vietnamese tend to clip some of their sounds, so Nguyen would be pronounced something like “Win” or “Wen.” Northern Vietnamese would keep it, giving a pronunciation more like “N'Win” or “Nuh'Win,” all done as best you can in one syllable. This has all been further complicated by the Vietnamese diaspora.
Thái is a last name commonly found in Vietnam among its Chinese community. It is the transliteration of a Chinese surname meaning: surname Cai.
Kim. Origin: Vietnamese. Meaning: Gold, metal.
Trần (陳) or Tran is a common Vietnamese surname (second most common). More than 10% of all Vietnamese people share this surname.
Annam, which originated as a Chinese name in the seventh century, was the common name of the country during the colonial period. Nationalist writer Phan Bội Châu revived the name "Vietnam" in the early 20th century.
The forerunners of the ethnic Vietnamese were Proto-Vietic people who descended from Proto-Austroasiatic people who may have originated from somewhere in Southern China, Yunnan, the Lingnan, or the Yangtze River, or mainland Southeast Asia, together with the Monic, who settled further to the west and the Khmeric ...
Some Vietnamese have a dual family name. Usually it is a combination of the father's family name and the mother's family name. For example, "Nguyễn Phạm", "Nguyễn Lê". Intercalary name The middle name is selected by parents from a fairly narrow range.
Pham is a last name commonly found in Vietnam among its Chinese community. It is the transliteration of a Chinese surname meaning: pattern, model, example.
During the years from 420 - 528, China's reign was at a chaotic climax. To survive, a large part of the Nguyen family from Anhui, Guangzhou, and Zhejiang moved down to the South and immigrated to Vietnam. Their community started to adopt Vietnamese culture and set the primary base for the growth of Nguyen's last name.
Yet there's no doubt about which surname is the most popular in the world: Wang. More than 106 million people have the surname Wang, a Mandarin term for prince or king. It's not too surprising that the top surname is Chinese, as China has the world's largest population.
In Northern Vietnamese, it's pronounced “ngwee-en”, the “ng” is the “ng” of “singer”, but in Southern Vietnamese, it's “ngweeng”, or simply “weeng”.
🖊Surname + Middle Name + First Name🖊 👉Usually, a Vietnamese's name has 3 letters, but sometimes, 2,4 or 5,6 letters. 👉Usually Vietnamese names have meanings behind Eg: Hoa(Flower), Mai (Apricot), Minh (Bright), etc.
“This tradition of showing loyalty to a leader by taking the family name is probably the origin of why there are so many Nguyens in Vietnam,” says O'Harrow.
How common is the surname Nguyễn? According to many censuses, on a global scale, up to 40% of Vietnamese people have the surname Nguyễn. In Vietnam alone, this surname appears on the birth certificates of nearly 39 million people.