Social relationships
By Huynh Dinh Te The desire to achieve harmony between the self and the non-self remains an essential preoccupation of the Vietnamese in interpersonal relations outside the family group. The basic principles underlying family relationships is extended to the relationships between members of wider social groups. The concept of society as an extension of the family is evident in the transposition into social usage of a language originally intended for domeslic life. Vietnamese uses more than a score of kinship terms as personal pronouns. The choice of the appropriate word depends on the relative age, social status, gender, degree of acquaintance, respect, and affection between speakers and hearers who are not related to each other by blood or marriage.
In Vietnamese society, the predominant sentiment in the relation between members of a social group is respect. This is particularly evident in the attitude towards older people. Respect and consideration for old age no doubt derive from the obligation of filial piety that requires young people to respect and love their parents and parent-like members of the family. Vietnamese also recognize that a long life is a sign of kindness and regard on the part of the deity for virtuous people, and that the elders are the carriers of tradition and the embodiment of knowledge and wisdom. Old people enjoy high respect in Vietnamese society, irrespective of wealth, education, or social positinn. This respecl is expressed in both attitude and hehavior, particularly in the use of speicla terms of address and stylistic devices. Unlike Western societies that put a premium on youth, Vietnamese society is proud of its old members. Age is an asset, not a liability.
Teachers, even though they are young, enjoy great respect and prestige in Vietnamese society. In Vietnam the student-teacher relationship retains much of the quality of a son's respect for his father's wisdom and of father's concern for his son's welfare. The respect that students show to the teachers is also evident in linguistic behavior. The terms of address that students use in speaking to their teachers are the same as those they use in speaking to their parents.
Respect is expressed in the form of courtesy and in the effort to spare others from the humiliation of losing face. Face is extremely important for the Vietnamese. The individual who loses face will have to endure public ridicule and derision in the midst of his community. Furthermore, the family shares any social disgrace incurred by the individual.
Linguistic devices are one of the many ways that allow the Vietnamese speaker to save face and at the same time allow others to save face. Depreciatory terms are applied to oneself and complimentary terms are used for others. Ihe practice of "beating about the bush" to avoid answering a request in the negative, and the tendency of the Vietnamese student to say yes to questions asked by his teacher stem from this preoccupation with saving face.
"You and I" in Vietnamese
In America, people put emphasis on friendliness in interpersonal relationships while in Vietnamese society the emphasis is more on respect. We may say without fear of error that respect is the cornerstone of interpersonal relationship in Vietnamese society, whether in the family or in social circles, whether on the employment scene or between friends and lovers. This is reflected in the language used by Vietnamese in their daily life.
In making an utterance, Vietnamese simultaneously expresses ideas and concepts and an attitude of respect (or disrespect) towards the hearer. This expression is natural because it is inherent in the nature of the words used, and generally neither the speaker nor the hearer are conscious of it. But, if the speaker unintentionally (or purposedly) uses a word reflecting an attitude of disrespect, the hearer will instantly realize it and react to it accordingly.
American people use only word, the word yes, to express agreement and this word is neutral as to respect or disrspect. Of course, an answer with the mere word yes lacks the courtesy conveyed by a longer answer such as "Yes, I am"; "Yes, he did"; or "Yes, Mr. Brown". On the contrary, the Vietnamese speaker must choose between Da., Va^ng, Pha?i to express agreement. No well-bred Vietnamese would use ¯ as an answer in talking to his parents, older people, his teacher, his superior, or monks and priests. In Vietnamese, other people invite us to xo+i ("eat rice" or "take a meal"), but in replying, we must say that we have already or not yet æn (eat) and not xo+i. How complicated it is!
The difference between the linguistic behavior of American and Vietnamese people can be seen in the use of personal names. In writing a letter to a person who is not known, to ask for information or to apply for a job, example, Arnericans will usually use the term Dear followed by the person name (the last name, it should be noted); this shows courtesy and friendliness. Vietnamese people, by contrast, use only terms expressing respect such as kính, kínb tbÜa . . and never address the person by name, for this would convey an impolite, disrespectful attitude. Conseguently, "Dear Mr. Brown" is not "O^ng Brown than men" but simply "Thua o^ng" or "Kinh o^ng" ("respected gentleman").
In American society where almost nobody knows anybody else, even people living in the same apartment complex, mentioning the name of the interlocutor shows that one is interested in and friendly toward him/her, the evidence of which is to be found in the remembering of his/her name. Consequentiy to show that they are courteous and friendly, American people usually mention the name of the interlocutor in their greetings. (i.e. "good morning, Mr. Brown" or "good-bye, Miss Green" when speaking to people who are not close friends, and "good morning, Bill" or "goodbbye, Susie" when speaking to friends. In Vietnamese society, almost everybody knows the name of everybody else living in the same community. The neighbors (called "la'ng gie^`ng") are often considered as friends or relatives. In greeting, speakers avoid mentioning the name of the interlocutors, especially those who are senior in age or status
. They are called by name only when they are close friends or junior in age or status. It is easy to imagine the cultural misunderstandings that might arise from first encounters between Vietnamese and Americans.
In Vietnamese, special respect is conveyed by using function-words for respect when addressing persons such as parents, old people, teachers. monks and priests, and superiors. The verbal response begins with a function-word such as "da.", "thu+a", "da. tbu+a", "ki'nh tbu+a". Therefore the word "da.", often translated as yes, is actually a function-word showing respect and does not necessarily indicate agreement.
Personal pronouns are a word class in Vietnamese which best reflects this preoccupation with expressing respect or disrespect for other people in language. American people have one word for you to address parents, brothers and sisters, wife and children, friends and foes, and even animals. Likewise, they have only the word I (or its inflected form me) to refer to themselves when speaking. How converlient it is! But at the same time those words lack the ability to express feelings of respect or disrespect of tee Vietnames personal pronouns. People who are senior in age or status are usually referred towith such term of respect as cu., o^ng, ba'c, chu', anh, tha^`y, cha, ba`, co^. People younger than the speaker, or who have a lower status, are usually addressed or referred to with the terms anh, chi., chu', em, cha'u, con. To show anger and disdain, the terms ma`y, mi... might be used, and fawning is shown by the use of nga`i or cu. Io+'n.
By observing the use of the terms of respect in Vietnamese, people can guess, to a certain extent, the personality and good manners of the speaker as well as the relationship between speaker and hearer. The use of these words which function as personal pronouns is a very delicate matter that depends on the speaker correctly assessing the relative age, status, and degree of intimacy between speaker and hearer. A man and a woman, at their first acquaintance, will call each other o^ng and to^i (or co^ and to^i). But as the degree of intimacy reaches the level of love, the term o^ng is replaced by anh and the term tp^i will become em. When love is lost, they will revert to the initial ông and tôi. In some cases where anger, hatred, and lack of self-control prevail, o^ng may become ma`y and to^i may become tao. The terms anh/em and ma`y/tao are separated by a Great Wall of feelings and emotions.
Terms of address such as bác, cbú, and anh are perhaps the most difficult to use in Vietnamese because they can express opposing feelings and sentiments. According to the context, they may express respect or disdain, familiarity or contempt. Perhaps they are much more difficult to use than the French words tu/toi which also can express either intimacy or contempt. When we address a stranger tu/toi, the only feeling conveyed is obviously contempt. But a Vietnamese addressing a stranger as bác may mean respect (considering him on the same footing as our father's elder brother), familiarity and affection (regarding him as his uncle), or outright contempt (looking down on him as having a low social status).
The expression of respect (or contempt) is inherent in the structure of Vietnamese. In using Vietnamese, we cannot overlook this essential feature of Vietnamese culture which is the expression of respect in language.
The Vietnamese Value System
By Huynh Dinh Te The Vietnamese value system is based on four basic tenets: allegiance to the family, yearning for a good name, love of learning, and respect for other people. These tenets are closely interrelated.
Allegiance to the family
The most important factor in the value system of the Vietnamese is, no doubt, the family. The family is the center of the Vietnamese common man's preoccupation and the backbone of Vietnamese society. By virtue of the principle of collective and mutual responsibility, each individual strives to be the pride of his family.
Misconduct of an individual is blamed not only on himself, but also on his parents, siblings, relatives, and ancestors. Likewise, any success or fame achieved by an individual brings honor and pride to all members of his family. The Vietnamese child is taught from early childhood to readily forget himself for the sake of his family's welfare and harmony. Central to the concept of family is the obligation of filial piety which is considered the most essential of all virtues in Vietnamese society. The child is expected to be grateful to his parents for the debt of birth, rearing and education. He is taught to to think of his parents and ancestors first, even at his own expense, to make sacrifices for his parents' sake, to love and care for them in their old age. The Vietnamese man who lacks filial piety is looked down upon and ostracized not only by his own family but also by the community.
The profound love for and attachment to the family is extended to the physical setting in which the family is located: the native village. The dearest wish of the Vietnamese common man is, as a proverb puts it, to die in his own native village and amidst his own folk "as a leaf which leaves the branch to fall down on the ground at the foot of the tree" (lá røng vŠ ci). The native village is not only the place where he was born and brought up and where his parents and family live but also a place where his ancestors are buried. Many Vietnamese, especially people in the rural areas, never move out of their native villages or provinces. This deep attachment to the native village explains the lack of horizontal mobility in Vietnamese society.
Concept of "good name"
The value that the Vietnamese placed on the concept of "good name," or more precisely "fragrant name" (danh thÖm), cannot be underestimated. To the Vietnamese, a good name is better than any material possession in this world. By securing a good name for himself, a man can command respect and admiration from his fellow countrymen. A rich and powerful person with a bad reputation is looked down upon, while a poor man with a good name is respected. It is believed that the best thing that a man can leave behind once he has departed from this world and by which he will be remembered is a good reputation. "After death, a tiger leaves behind his skin, a man his reputation," says a proverb. The desire to have a good name, not only in his life time but also after death, betrays the deep aspiration of the Vietnamese to survive the disintegration of his corporeal frame after death in the memory of his progeny and community.
A man with a bad name will be disclaimed by his fellow countrymen and become a disgrace to his family. He will lose face, which is a terrible thing in an immobile society where almost everybody knows everybody else in the community. To acquire a good name, a man must avoid all words and actions which damage his dignity and honor. There are three ways by which he can acquire a good name: either by heroic deeds; by intellectual achievements; or by moral virtues. Leading a virtuous life is the easiest and surest path to a good name for there are few opportunities in our everyday life to be heroic and few people are endowed with exceptional intellectual qualities. The virtues most cultivated are the sense of honor, honesty, righteousness, modesty, generosity, and disdain for material gains, virtues most extolled by the Confucian doctrine. In view of the strong solidarity of the Vietnamese family, it is not surprising to know that the Vietnamese strives for a good name not only for himself but also for his parents and children.
Love of learning
The Vietnamese common man seems to have a great love for knowledge and learning. He seems to have particular respect and admiration for learned people. Like the virtuous man, the learned man enjoys great prestige in Vietnamese society. Often, they are the one and same man. The Vietnamese conceives that knowledge and virtues are but the two complementary aspects of the ideal man.
Memorial of ancient scholars in Hanoi 
People associated with knowledge and learning (scholars, writers and teachers) have always been highly respected, not only by the students but also by parents and people from all walks of life.
Learning is considered more valuable than wealth and material success. Rich people who are not educated are often looked down upon by other people and they themselves feel inferior to learned people who are poor. In the traditional social system the scholar ranked first, before the farmer, artisan, and tradesman. Even nowadays, the learned man is held in high esteem and respect. The love of learning does not spring from purely disinterested motives. The lure of prestige and the prospect of improved social status are among the strongest incentives to the pursuit of knowledge. Education represents the essential stepping stones to the social ladder and to good job opportunities . It is the prime force of vertical mobility in Vietnamese society.
Concept of respect
The Vietnamese common man is expected to show respect to people who are senior to him in age, status, or position. At home, he should show respect to his parents, older siblings, and older relatives. This is expressed by obedience in words and action. Respect is part of the concept of filial piety.
Outside the family, respect should be paid to elderly people, teachers, clergymen, supervisors and employers, and people in high positions. Learned and virtuous people enjoy special respect and admiration. But respect is not a one-way behavior. The Vietnamese common man also expects other people to show respect to him, by virtue of his age, status, or position. Special respect is gained by leading a virtuous life, by accomplishing certain heroic deeds or by achieving a high degree of intellectuality.
Respect is expressed by specific behaviors and linguistic devices inherent in the Vietnamese language. It is one of the essential factors in the value system of the Vietnamese people.
Family relationships
By Huynh Dinh Te Family structure
The family is the basic instituation in society; it perpetuates society and protects the individual. Generally speaking, Vietnamese family structure is more complex than that of the American family, which is essentially nuclear in nature and which excludes relatives and in-laws. In the Vietnamese family roles are more numerous and more fined than in its American counterpart.
Vietnamese people distinguish between the immediate family (ti‹u gia-Ḉnh) and the extended family (Çåi gia-Ḉnh). The Vietnamese immediate family includes not only the husband, wife, and their unmarried children, but but also the husband's parents and the sons' wives and children, The extended family consists of the immediate family and close relatiVes who share the same family name and ancestors and who live in the same community.
The complexity of the Vietnamese concept oF family is reflected in the rather complex terminology designating kinship. Each member of the extended family has a particular designation according to his/her relative position and his/her role in the family structure. People are often referred to by the kinship term rather than by given name.
In Vietnamese society, the father is the head of the family. However, unlike the father in traditional Chinese society, who is empowered, at least theoretically, with absolute rights over his children and wife, the Vietnamese father shares with his wife and children collective and bilateral responsibility, legally, morally, and spiritually.
In the relationship between parents and chilren, as well as between husband and wife, the Vietnamese people retain much of their own custom and tradition, despite the great influence of Chinese culture and Confucian doctrine. In the eyes of the children, the Vietnamese mother has the same status as the father. She is also the embodiment of love and the spirit of self-denial and sacrifice.
Parent-child relationship
Vietnamese parents consider it a most important responsibility to train their children. By virtue of the principle of collective responsibility, the parents will bear the disgrace brought about by the activities of children who dishonor themselves just as they share the honor and fame of their virtuous and talented children.
Mother and child, silk painting ![]()
At an early age, children are taught by their parents to behave according to the principle of filial piety. The family is the school in which the child learns the respect rules in both behavior and linguistic response. Filial piety consists of loving, respecting, and obeying one's parents. Talking back or acting contrary to the wishes of one's parents is evidence of lack of filial piety. For the Vietnamese, the obligation to obey his parents does not end with coming of age or marriage. Filial piety also means solicitude and support to one's parents, chiefly in their old age. Vietnamese elderly people never live by themselves or in nursing homes but with one of their children, usually their eldest son. This obligation is not discontinued by the parents' death. It survives in the form of ancestral cult and the maintenance of ancestral tombs. Ancestor worship is practised in most, if not all, Vietnamese homes even in the homes of Viettnamese people living overseas.
The child who lacks filial piety is rejected and ostracized by other members of the family and comnlunity. The worst insult which a Vietnamese can receive and by which he is deeply wounded is the ex- pression "lack filial piety" (con bat hieu).
Sibling relationships
In Vietnamese culture, the relationship between siblings is determined by the principle of seniority, which requires younger siblings to respect and obey older ones. The eldest brother is entrusted with a heavy responsibility that of substituting for the parents in case of emergency. He is considered by his siblings as their leader. Concord and love among siblings is a token of happy and virtuous family.
Attitude towards relatives
As with members of the immediate family, members of the extended family are boud together by a strong sense of collective responsibility and mutual obligation. The notion of blood relalionship is always present in the mind of the Vietnamese. In honor or in disgrace, members of the extended family will share the same fate as if they were members of the immediate family. They are expected to give one another moral and material assistance, especially in time of stress. On the social and political planes, this strong sense of loyalty to the extended family tends to encourage the spirit of sectarianism and nepotism.
The notion of family ties is imprinted in the mind of the Vietnamese because of the importance of filial piety. Respect and love are demanded of young people to members of the parental generation and above. Uncles and aunts must be treated with respect as if they were one's own parents. In addition to the consciousness of blood relationships and the linguistic ties that reinforce kinship relationships and age seniority, members of the Vietnamese extended family are closely bound by the common veneration of the dead. Ancestor worship is a hyphen between the dead and the living and a strong tie between members sharing the same ancestry. Through such rites as the cleaning of the ancestral tombs (täo-m) and celebration of ancestral death anniversaries (ngày gi‡), which all members of the extended family are expected to attend, the ties which bind the Vietnamese to other members of his family are reinforced.
In the last decades the Vietnamese family insitution has been attacked on all fronts. The Western doctrine of individualism advocated the liberation of the individual from the encroachment of the family upon his personal freedom. Under the communist regime, the state replaced parents in the filial piety relationship, and children were taught to spy on their own parents and report to the Party any subversive talk or behavior. The war devastated the countryside and brought people to the cities where narrow spaces were not suitable to the pattern of the extended family. Since 1975, with the communist takeover of the whole country and the tragic exodus of the Vietnamese people throughout the world to search for freedom, the Vietnamese family has become increasingly broken and separated by distance. Husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters live thousands and thousands of miles apart. But despite of all this, deep family feelings and ties are still strong and the Vietnamese family concept still survives through time and change.
What's in a name
By De Tran Every year, when the new San Jose telephone book arrives, I check to see how many De Trans are listed. This year there are six. A quick search on the World Wide Web turned up 27 other De Trans listed somewhere in the United States. Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, Nevada and Washington listed one each; Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York and Virginia boasted two. California, not surprisingly, leads with 14 De Trans. Not bad for a name I acquired by accident.
My name actually is Tran Thanh Do. But when our family came to the United States, officials misspelled it as Tran Thanh De.
Still, De is a good name. It's versatile. De is a preposition in French and Spanish. And De is "Ed" spelled backward. In fact, De Tran spelled backward is Ed Nart. The American immigration history is replete with misspelled names. My friend, Timothy Patrick Goodman, said immigration officials botched it so badly that his grandfather was given the surname Goodman when he arrived to New York City around the turn of the century. And that, he said, was how a freckled-faced, red-haired Irish lad-"Opie" to his friends-inherited a Jewish last name.
Living in a new country involves more than just adapting to a new environment. a new language, a new culture. It also involves having one's name altered, mis-pronounced. It sometimes means dropping the accent marks that accompanied one name since birth.
German names lose their umlauts; Latinos drop their tildes; Chinese, Japanese and Koreans change their names to conform with English phonetics. Vietnamese eliminate their accent marks.
Sometimes, the very order of one's name is reversed.
I My current name, for example, would be Tran De in Vietnam. In the United States, after much confusion, almost all Vietnamese immigrants adapt the Western standard by putting their surname last and their given name first. Many also drop their middle name to cut down on potential misspellings.
That was how the already-modified Tran Thanh De became De Tran. At least six De Trans in Santa Clara County had the same idea. Once I applied for loan and freaked out when the TRW credit reported that I owed Emporium Capwell $10,000. It was another De Tran.
Tran is a common Vietnamese last name, much more prevalent than Smith or Garcia in the United States. But Tran is nothing compared to Nguyen-by far the most dominant surname. Nguyen is to Vietnamese last names what Microsoft is to the computing world. The Nguyens occupy seven page in the San Jose phone book.
While the following analysis is not exactly scientific, it offers a picture of the dominance of Nguyens, the No. 1 surname of homeowners in Santa Clara County. Take the current numbers of Nguyens, Smiths and Garcias in the San Jose phone book, compare them to the 1990 census, and this is what you get: The Nguyens would make up 6.5 percent of the Vietnamese-American population in San Jose and Santa Clara, while Smiths would only comprise 0.2 percent of whites and Garcias 0.4 percent of Latinos. And that doesn't even take into account the higher average household density of Vietnamese families.
The original boundaries of Vietnam included the northern part of today's Vietnam. A warlord named Nguyen Hoang conquered what is now southern Vietnam. Many of the Nguyens were the descendants of Nguyen Hoang, said Nguyen Van Dai, a San Francisco poet. King Bao Dai, Vietnam's last emperor, was a descendant of Nguyen Hoang, Dai said. In old Vietnamese society, Dai said, if someone contributed to the court, the emperor allowed that person to adopt the royal last name, a practice much like being knighted.
There ale other historical reasons for the prevalence of the Nguyen name. During the Tran Dynasty in the 11th to 13th centuries, many of the families of the prior dynasty courtesans - the Lys - changed their name to Nguyen to avoid persecution.
Writer Nguyen Qui Duc recalled in an interview that one Vietnamese New Year he was in Singapore where there are few Vietnamese residents. Homesick, he called up all the Nguyens in the Singaporean directory and wished them a happy new year.
Duc, too, recalled the time he was living in Sacramento. He was surprised to find that some of Vietnamese there had first names like Francisco and Juan. It turned out that they were advised to pick an American names when they became naturalized. They decided to choose the names of their American neighbors, who were mostly Latinos.
In polyglot America, perhaps names like Francisco Tran or Daniel Nguyen or Timothy Patrick Goodman won't seem odd at all. Perhaps one day, they'll be as American as apple pie-or at least apple strudel.
Attitude toward the self
By Huynh Dinh TeStatus of the individual
Despite his concern for a certain amount of individuality, the Vietnamese is not an individualist. In Vietnamese culture the interest and destiny of an individual are rarely conceptualized outside the framework of the immediate and extended families. Anything a Vietnamese does, he does out of consideration for the welfare of the family, rather than for himself alone.
As an individual, the Vietnamese endeavors to live in harmony with himself as well as with the outer world of humanity and nature. Harmony with oneself is achieved by the acceptance of life and the world. To the Vietnamese, life is the most precious property to which no material possession can be compared. As a proverb puts it, "a man alive is worth more than a pile of golf." The preservation of the self is not only a personal responsibility but also the responsibility of an individual toward his family. 'This recognition of the importance of the physical self distinguishes the mentality of the Vietnamese from the Hindu, which is characterized chiefly by the importance given to the world of the spirit, often carried to the extreme of despising and considering as irrelevant any material aspect of life.
Harmony with oneself is achieved by observing moderation and by avoiding extremes. The reason for seeking moderation in food and drink is not only physical safety but also for the moral imperative to keep one's dignity unimpaired. Moderation and caution in speech constitutes a distinctive feature of Vietnamese culture. Since childhood, the Vietnamese is taught to think deeply before opening his mouth, and, in the words of a well-known proverb, "to open his mouth only when asked to and to answer only when beckoned to." This attitude is in part prompted by the belief that wise and talented people are modest in action and speech. Bragging reflects and empty soul. Moderation and caution in speech are also motivated by an awareness of the danger that verbal excess can bring by creating discord and animosity. It is commonly believed that hasty words and slips of tongue are as devastating as hasty actions and bad deeds. Because of this cultural predisposition, the Vietnamese often appear to be reserved, non-responsive, or non-assertive by American standards.
This is particularly true of the behavior of Vietnamese children in school, where they rarely volunteer an answer for fear of making mistake and losing face, or of appearing to behave in boastful way. They would rather wait until called upon by the teacher to give an answer, for since early childhood, they have been taught to talk only when talked to and to answer only when asked to.
Certain virtues seem to have a greater appeal to the Vietnamese than the others. Most conspicuous are moderation, modesty, moral probity and self-control, qualities which make him a refined, well-mannered person. The term of criticism that the Vietnamese fears most is ill-bred (Ç̉ mĂt dåy), which deals a serious blow not only to the ego but also to the honor of his family, and by extension, to filial piety.
Naming system
Other than the physical self, perhaps the thing that most confers identity to a person is his/her name. (In his own country, the Vietnamese does not have a social security number.) The naming system of the Vietnamese is different from that of Americans and most other Asian peoples.
What's your Name? A Study in Cultural Differences
What's your last name? This simple question, so easy for most foreigners who speak some English, is for the Vietnamese, even those who speak English fluently, a question to which a right answer is difficult to give. The difficulty does not lie in the meaning of the term name but in the use of name that is different in American and Vietnamese societies. American people who are familiar with Vietnamese habits and customs epitomize the difference in the following statement: "They put the names in the wrong order, the last name written first and the first name last." This, however, is not the whole story. The best way to bring out the difference is, perhaps, to describe how names are used in Vietnamese society.
A Vietnamese name for example NguyÍn Væn Hai, usually consists of three parts occurring in the following order: family name (NguyÍn), middle name (Væn), and given name (Hai). Some people do not have, or omit, middle names. Others have two-part given names, written as two words, that results in the appearance of four component parts.
Generally speaking, a Vietnamese family name does not have any meaning, at least its meaning is no longer apparent to the common people. Unlike Americans, Vietnamese are never known by their family names alone. A Vietnamese is always called by his/her given name. His/her family name appears only in full name, but never in isolation. There are a few exceptions to this general practice, however, and these are motivated by political reasons. Ho Chi Minh was known as President Ho (or Uncle Ho) and Ngo Dinh Diem was called President Ngo because their followers wanted to sort them out from the rest of the nation and elevate them to the status of divine ruler. Calling them by given names would be a mark of irreverence amounting to sacrilege. (In the old days, only the King was referred to by his dynasty name. Referring to a King by his given name was punishable by imprisonment or even death.)
There are about one hundred family names for the whole population estimated at about 69 million, but only a core of these names are of frequent occurrence: Nguyen, Le, Tran, Pham, Phan, Truong and so on. This may in part explain why Vietnamese are not called by their family names; there are too many with the same name. Some family names are indicative of the ethnicity of the bearers (Chinese, Cham, Cambodian, Hmong); others may have different spellings and pronunciation as Vo vs. Vu, and Hoang vs. Hùynh, the result of the practice of euphemism.
Given names usually have a meaning and parents often choose for their children names that reflect their aspirations and ideals. There can be as many given names as there are words in Vietnamese language. Some of the common names are words denoting qualities and virtues (Trung-fidelity, Hung-courage, Liem-integrity); the seasons (Xuan-spring, Thu-autumn); flowers (Hong-rose, Lan-orchid); fruits (Nho-grape, Le-pear), or natural phenomena and celestial bodies (Tuyet-snow, Van-cloud, Nguyet-moon). Girl's names are frequently chosen from words denoting virtues, things that are beautiful, sweet, fragrant, or melodious. Any name can be used for boys or girls, although some names are more typical of one than the other. In general, a given name consists Of one word, but it is becoming more common to give girls a two-word name (or compound name) like Thu-Hong, Bich-Hong, Cam-Hong, Thuy-Hong instead of the single word Hong. Boy may sometimes take a two-word name but this tends to be less common.
After marriage a Vietnamese woman still keeps her own name and never combines her name with that of her husband. Thus a woman whose name is Nguyen Thi Thu Hong married to a man whose name is Tran Van Tam will be called Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thu Hong and not Tran Thi Thu Hong or Tam Thi Thu Hong. She may be called Mrs. Tran Van Tam, but most often her papers bear the name Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thu Hong.
The Vietnamese given name, when preceded by a term of address like Mr., Mrs., Dr., or Rev., is practically an equivalent to the American last name. The given name used by itself is somewhat similar to the American first name. However, in Vietnamese society, given names, especially names of those higher in social status, age or rank in the extended family, have a certain "taboo" quality. When talking to a person who is not a close friend, Vietnamese people tend to avoid mentioning his name. This practice is also transferred to their interactions with American people. Even when they speak English, they tend to avoid mentioning the name of the interlocutor, especially if that person is their teacher or boss. In Vietnamese society, it is a great insult to mention a person's mother's or father's given name. Because of this "taboo" quality, names are carefully chosen for newborns to avoid the names of one's parents ancestors, relatives. and close friends.
Vietnamese middle names are used for various purposes. They are used to differentiate a man's name from a women's name since there are practically no names that are exclusively masculine or feminine. The common middle name for women is Thi, or less commonly, Nu. So, Nguyen Van Hai is a man and NguyÍn Thi Hai is a woman. There is, however, a tendency among the younger generation to drop the ThÎ from their names, thus eliminating the indicator of gender. Middle names for men are more varied. Some of the most common are Van, D́nh, Huu, Duc, and Trong. Middle names can also serve to differentiate one branch of a family from another. In this case, the same middle name is shared by all those members who share a common ancestor. In other cases, the middle name indicates the generation level; all those who share the same generation have the same middle name. In yet other cases, the middle name serves to reinforce, qualify, or make the given name more meaningful; for example, NguyÍn Danh, whose given name means "good reputation," might have the middle name Luu, making the name mean "leaving a good reputation." A recent trend, no doubt influenced by foreign practices is to use the mother's family name as a middle name, but this is not very common.
Because names are used differently in American and Vietnamese societies, the Vietnamese will face a dilemma in answering the simple question, "What is your last name?" Should a Vietnamese whose name is Nguyen Van Hai tell his American friends that his last name is Hai or Nguyen? If he says that his last (by inference, his family name) is Hai, he is not telling the truth because Hai is his given name. He is right, however, in the sense that people will call him Mr. Hai as he has always been called by his fellow countrymen. But how can he explain that his father's last name is not Hai and his children's last name are not Hai, either? If he says his last name is Nguyen, he is telling the truth, in that it is his family name, but he is not right, in that people will call him Mr. Nguyen and not Mr. Hai. Moreover, his name will be rewritten as Hai Van Nguyen, which is as strange to him as the name of somebody unknown him. The advantage in this case is that he will have the same name as his father and his children. With American names, it is usually easy to distinguish the first from the last name. John Smith and Smith John can only be one and the same person. This is not the case with Vietnamese names. Ha Van Mai and Mai Van Ha are two different persons. By reversing the order of the different parts of a Vietnamese name, we may change a person's name into that of another completely unknown to him.
Vietnamese is tone language and the tones are represented in writing by various diacritic marks that are not used in English. In written files, different names like Nguye^~n Va(n Tuye^n, Nguye^~n Va(n Tuye^`n, Nguye^~n Va(n Tuye^'n, Nguye^~n Va(n Tuye^?n, and so on, are usually written exactly the same way. Therefore it is not possible to tell who is who, and confusion of identity and embarrassment may arise. Vietnamese are making efforts to learn new things and new ways of behavior in their new country, including the practice of reversing the order of their names, recognizing a name written without any diacritic marks, and adjusting to being addressed by their family names.
A study of Vietnamese names would not be complete if we did not mention the way in which names are given to members of the former royal family. (The last King, Bao Dai, abdicated in 1945 at the time of the August Revolution to become citizen Nguyen Vinh Thuy.) The name of the royal family is Nguyen. The founder of the dynasty is NguyÍn Phuc Anh, known as King Gia-Long. His successor, Minh-Mang, devised a way to give names to members of the family to distinguish them from the common people. Those who are not direct descendants of the King will be known as Ton-That (for men) and Ton-Nu (for women). Those who are direct descendants will be given a name taken from a poem written by Minh-Mang himself to reflect the generation to which they belong:
MIEN HUONG UNG BUU VINH
BAO QUI DINH LONG TUONG
HIEN NANG KHAM KE THUAT
THE THOAI QUOC GIA XUONG
The first word in this poem, which consists of four lines with five words in each, became the middle name of the first generation of Minh-Mang's descendants; the second became the name of the second generation, and so on. Minh-Mang envisioned that the Nguyen family would reign for at least twenty generations. Unfortunately, it lasted for only five generations after Minh-Mang. The name of King Bao Dai is Nguyen Phuc Vinh Thuy. Vinh is the fifth word in the poem written by Minh-Mang. (Today in Vietnam it is possible to find people bearing the name Vinh as their middle, or generation, name; they represent the eighth generation since Minh-Mang.) The names taken from Minh-Mang's poem are actually middle names but members of the royal family use them as if they were family names. They simply leave off the family name Nguyen. For women, members of each generation also receive a special name to distinguish them from other generations, such as Cong Ton Nu, Cong Huyen Ton Nu, Công Tang Ton Nu, and so on. This practice still goes on even though there is no longer a king Vietnam.
