NGUYEN - The Most Common Surname in Vietnam

Hi Everyone,

My name is Thao Nguyen, and the first reaction of many foreigners when they hear my name is that “ are you Vietnamese?”. And yes, I am. You may see this last name somewhere out of Vietnam, such as America, UK, etc. It can be seen that this is a mark to identify Vietnamese. Up to about 90 million Vietnamese over the world is named Nguyen. Have you ever wonder why this name is so popular and accounts for a large number of Vietnamese?

[Source: google image]

Let’s look back to about 1500 years ago, in the Northern and Southern Dynasties; Nguyen families immigrated from China to Vietnamese. Gradually they assimilated their life with the locals to settle down.

Until more than 300 years later, another immigration continued to happen; the Nguyen families moved from China to Vietnam to avoid war and competition of food as well as accommodation. This change increased the number of Vietnamese with the name Nguyen.

The widening of the Nguyen is also a result of the power of dynasties. When a new dynasty took mastery, the people in the higher class having the family name of the former dynasty had to change to the Nguyen to avoid revenge (only the nobles had last name, the commoner in lower classes did not have). However, until now, why the name Nguyen was picked is still a secret. This change started from the Tran dynasty and lasted to the later dynasties, including Ho, Mac, and the Trinh family. It became a custom. This custom itself made the number get bigger.

The Nguyen dynasty was the last Feudal one in Vietnam history. The last reason resulted from the 19th century when Vietnam became France’s colony. French had the largest census in all of Vietnam. During the investigation, they encountered a big problem, that is, “the majority of people in the lower class did not have the last name, so there was no way to summarize statistics”. What to do at this time? The French immediately found a way; the Nguyen Dynasty was the last dynasty of the Vietnamese, so for those who did not have any last name, their last name should be Nguyen. Hence, this last name was expanded on an unprecedented scale once more.

Nowadays, in Hue imperial, we can find a lot of remarkable relics of the Nguyen dynasty. How beautiful is this most popular last name? Now you understand why so many NGUYEN Surname in my country. Let’s come and discover it by your way in Vietnam.

Some pictures were taken in Hue, Viet Nam

Thank you for reading, and I hope you will enjoy it.