Get your own Vietnamese Name
There are about 300 different Vietnamese surnames in Vietnam. Of the 300 names, however, only 14 surnames are used for the most part. One of the most popular surnames is Nguyen. The name Nguyen comes from the Nguyen dynasty of the same name. The Vietnamese accept this popular family name out of pure loyalty.
What is a common Vietnamese name? The 14 most popular Vietnamese surnames:
- Nguyễn 阮
- Trần 陳
- Lê 黎
- Phạm 范
- Huỳnh/Hoàng 黃
- Phan 潘
- Vũ/Võ 武
- Đặng 鄧
- Bùi 裴
- Đỗ 杜
- Hồ 胡
- Ngô 吳
- Dương 楊
- Lý 李
(Source: Lê Trung Hoa, Họ Và Tên Người Việt Nam (Vietnamese Family and Personal Names), Social Sciences Publishing House (2005))
How do Vietnamese names work? The order of vietnamese Names
Similar to China and Korea, the surname is also written before the proper name in Vietnam. This means that the order of the individual names is as follows – Surname + Middle Name + Given Name.
you can find more names on our page
Vietnamese Names after Marriage
At the marriage both partners keep their birth names. If children are born together in the marriage, the children are given the surname of the father.
How do Vietnamese Given Names work?
The Given Name usually consists of two names – the middle name and the given name. The middle name can help to determine the gender if the name is not visible in the given name. As a result, the girls were given the middle name „Thi“ and the boys the middle name „Van“. With this possibility you could easily distinguish boy names and maiden names. Nowadays this separation is no longer carried out.