Vietnamese Culture and The Origin of The "Nguyen" Last Name

The chance of you running into a Vietnamese person with the last name of Nguyen is pretty high (I wish my lottery chance that high). If you are on this site, you have already encountered two Nguyens. So why there are so many Nguyen, yet the chances of the Nguyen are related to each other are slim? If you must put the spotlight on someone, then the person to do that is the founder of the Nguyen Dynasty, Hue Nguyen. This is one of the versions out there as to why there are so many Nguyen.

First, how Vietnam gets it name?

Let's start from the beginning. In 1788, the Chinese tried to conquer Viet Nam but failed due to an army led by Hue Nguyen. At that time, Viet Nam was known as "An Nam" and the land was divided into two: "An Nam and Viet Thuong." The new ruler wanted his country to be united under one name so he sent Le Quan Dinh in 1802to see the Qing Emperor for permission to change the name to "Nam Viet."

The Qing Emperor hesitated for a bit because he does not want anyone to misunderstood "Nam Viet" for the Trieu Da's kingdom of "Nam Viet Dong," which consist of Guangdong and Guangxi the Chinese Provinces. He did not want the new king of Nguyen to have any idea of taking his land so he suggested the name should be "Viet Nam" instead.

Why there are so many Nguyens?

There are a lot of different versions. So if you heard something different, please don't panic, although my brother and I live in the same household we already know two different versions.

Under the new rule of the Nguyen emperor, there was peace across the land. It is said that the emperor was very kind and caring to his people. When the emperor came across a rural village, he was shocked at the situation there. The people had hardly any food or clothes so the king immediately sent for the items to give to his people.

After spending some time at the village and beginning to know the people, the emperor realize that the residents residing there do not even have their own last name. As a result, he pitied the people and said that from now on the people of that village will have his last name. Soon words spread and out of admiration from the people, they too began to change their last name to the emperor's.

The change in last name is a common practice as each new Dynasty came into. An explanation to this is simple, the people want to pay respect to the emperor and show him their loyalty by having his last name. After all, in an Asian's country, carrying on the family's name is important that is why people want to have a son instead of a girl.

In another version, the Nguyen emperor came to a village and massacred all the males. The emperor caused the whole village to lose its future without a name since males carry on the family's name. Out of guilt, he allowed the people residing there to have his last name.

You are Nguyen and I'm a Nguyen, aren't we related?

How can you tell if one is relate to another with same last name, without having to ask? Trust me; it is very annoying when we are being asked if we are related to someone else with the last name Nguyen. For example, most of my high school years I was always being asked if I was related to a famous Cowboy football player, Dat Nguyen. If I have a nickel for every time I was being asked, I may just buy a team for myself (hehe).

One of the ways to find out relation between people is looking at the middle name and not the last name. If you remember reading the first article, both my brother's and my middle name are the same, Vu. Vu is also one of the Vietnamese last names, though not as common. We have this as our middle name is because our mom's maiden name is Vu. My dad wanted to combine both our family's name together in our own name. This, I think is the simplest way to find if someone is related to another person if they have two last names, one as the last name and the other is the middle name. Some families like mine would combine both parents' last names so the mother's maiden name can also carry on to the next generation.

Traditionally, Vietnamese girl's middle name would mostly be "Thi," if not it would be "Kim." Meanwhile, to indicate if it's a boy, then it would be "Van." Today on the other hand, the middle name is up to the parents so the rule does not apply in order to tell the name is a girl or a boy.

Thank you for coming. This article is not very good, but you have to excuse because this is my second article. Hope you enjoy. If you have any questions, please, contact us. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter.

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