# Vietnamese: Nguyen as in the family name



## Barre-tendre

Hi, 

I have a question for Vietnamese people. I would like to know why Nguyen is such a common family name. Is there a special meaning behind this word? Or is it the name of some deity or royalty? 

I would be very grateful if anybody can answer my question. I need this information for a paper I am writing right now. Thanks.


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## cutycuty

Barre-tendre said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have a question for Vietnamese people. I would like to know why Nguyen is such a common family name. Is there a special meaning behind this word? Or is it the name of some deity or royalty?
> 
> I would be very grateful if anybody can answer my question. I need this information for a paper I am writing right now. Thanks.


 


The ''Nguyen'' is the most common family name along with others such as Phan, Le, Tran etc.
The ''Nguyen'' does not concern to any deity but has strongly relative to the royalty that is the last Vietnamese dynasty - ''nha Nguyen''(the Nguyen dynasty) from 1802 to 1945 with 13 different reigns, the first was Gia long empror (PhucAnh Nguyen) 1802-1819, the last was Tu Duc (PhucVinhThuy Nguyen) 1926-1945. 143 years was such a long time and the Vietnamese people tend to change their family name to ''Nguyen'' because if they change to Nguyen, they may get easier the advancement to do business, studying and working for the empire. One more reason is in 1802 when the Gia Long succeeded in defeating the Tayson-the previous dynasty, he had lauched a big campain to revenge all the people who were the relatives or supporters of the previous, so many families had changed their own families name as an action to back up the ''Nguyen'' to avoid this revenge.

You can reply if you want more information about Nguyen, I will be willing to help as possible.
Could you help me to correct the grammar if I have made any fault. Thanks.


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## Barre-tendre

Thank you so much, Cutycuty. This is exactly what I need to know. 

Don`t worry about your English, I think it is way better than mine.


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## PHN

I think when you "cutycuty" say "reigns", you want to say "kings".

Was it free for somebody to change his own name ?
What had somebody to do in order to change his own name ?


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## cutycuty

PHN said:


> I think when you "cutycuty" say "reigns", you want to say "kings".
> 
> Was it free for somebody to change his own name ?
> What had somebody to do in order to change his own name ?


 
I Do not know exactly the number of the Nguyen in Vietnam actually, that may be about 20% equal to 15 millions Vietnamese people nowaday. This is the different in compare with the West, in your country, you can identify s.o comes from, his family, and may be his position in society such as Kennedy-USA, Adams-UK, Chirac-FR, Rossi-Italy ect, but in Vietnam you can not get s.o by his family name, you should know his name, and that is the best way to distinguish with others.

This was free to change the family name, but make sure that nobody want to change it, because of the pride about his family, the changing just happened in some special cases (mentioned above).
Nomally when a child was born, he would get his father's family name.
The leader of family (meaning a big family with many generations- I can't find a better relevant word for this) who could be the ordest and having the influence with other powerful ones would decide about that.
Thanks for your quetions.


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