Nguyễn (阮) (sometimes abbreviated as Ng̃) is the most common

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

of the

Vietnamese people The Vietnamese people (, ) or the Kinh people (), also known as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day northern Vietnam and Dongxing, Guangxi, southern China who speak Vietnamese language, Viet ...

. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s as ''Nguyen''. By some estimates 30 to 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this

.Lê Trung Hoa, ''Họ và tên người Việt Nam'', NXB Khoa học - Xã hội, 2005

Origin and usage

is the transcription of the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of the character

阮 Ruan ( zh, c=阮, p=Ruǎn, w=''Juan'', ) is a Chinese surname. The Taiwanese Hokkien version or is transcribed Oán and Ńg in Pe̍h-ōe-jī. The Cantonese language, Cantonese version is romanized Jyun2 in the Jyutping system or Yún in the Y ...

, which originally was used to write a name of a state in

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

or ruan, an ancient Chinese instrument. The same Chinese character is often romanized as in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and as in

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

. The first recorded mention of a person surnamed Nguyễn is a description dating AD 317, of a journey to

Giao Châu Jiaozhou (; Wade–Giles: Chiao1-Cho1; ) was an imperial Chinese province under the Han and Jin dynasties. Under the Han, the area included Liangguang and northern Vietnam but Guangdong was later separated to form the province of Guangzhou ...

undertaken by Eastern Jin dynasty officer

Nguyễn Phu Nguyễn (阮) (sometimes abbreviated as Ng̃) is the most common surname of the Vietnamese people. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as ''Nguyen''. By some estimates 30 to 39 percent of Vietnamese peopl ...

and his family. Many events in Vietnamese history have contributed to the name's prominence. In 1232, after usurping the

Lý dynasty The Lý dynasty (, , chữ Nôm: 茹李, chữ Hán: 朝李, Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: ''triều Lý''), officially Đại Cồ Việt (chữ Hán: 大瞿越) from 1009 to 1054 and Đại Việt (chữ Hán: 大越) from 1054 to 1225, was ...

Trần Thủ Độ Prince Trung Vũ Trần Thủ Độ ( vi-hantu, 陳守度, 1194–1264) was a general and leader of the Trần clan during the reign of Lý Huệ Tông and Lý Chiêu Hoàng of Vietnam. He was the chief mastermind between the overthrowal the L� ...

forced the descendants of the Lý to change their surname to Nguyễn. When

Hồ Quý Ly Hồ Quý Ly ( vi-hantu, 胡季犛, 1336 – 1407?) ruled Đại Ngu (Vietnam) from 1400 to 1401 as the founding emperor of the short-lived Hồ dynasty. Quý Ly rose from a post as an official served the court of the ruling Trần dynasty and ...

overturned the

Trần dynasty The Trần dynasty (Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: Nhà Trần, chữ Nôm: 茹陳; Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: triều Trần, chữ Hán: ikt:朝ikt:陳, 朝wikt:陳, 陳), officially Đại Việt (Chữ Hán: 大越), was a List ...

, he killed many of their descendants so when the

Hồ dynasty The Hồ dynasty (Vietnamese: , chữ Nôm: 茹胡; Vietnamese: ''triều'' ''Hồ'', chữ Hán: wikt:朝, 朝wikt:胡, 胡), officially Đại Ngu (; chữ Hán: 大虞), was a short-lived List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty cons ...

collapsed in 1407, many of his descendants changed their surname to Nguyễn in fear of retribution. In 1592, on the collapse of the

Mạc dynasty The Mạc dynasty (; Hán-Nôm: 茹莫/ 朝莫) (1527–1677), officially Đại Việt (Chữ Hán: 大越), was a Vietnamese dynasty which ruled over a unified Vietnam between 1527 and 1540, and northern Vietnam from 1540 until 1593. The M ...

, their descendants changed their surname to Nguyễn. In late 16th century, the Tư Mã clan from Thanh Hóa changed to Nguyễn and settled in

Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; ; ; ; ) is a historical exonym and endonym, exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts, usually for Southern Vietnam. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer t ...

. When the

Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...

(the descendants of the

Nguyễn Lords The Nguyễn lords (, 主阮; 1558–1777, 1780–1802), also known as the Nguyễn clan (; ), were Nguyễn dynasty's forerunner and a feudal noble clan ruling southern Đại Việt in the Revival Lê dynasty. The Nguyễn lords were membe ...

) took power in 1802, some of the descendants of the

Trịnh Lords Trịnh is a Vietnamese family name In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full na ...

fearing retribution changed their surname to Nguyễn, while others fled north into China.

Other countries

The Nguyen surname also appears in China () but is significantly less common than its Vietnamese counterpart.

Overseas Vietnamese usage

The prevalence of Nguyễn as a family name in Vietnam extends to outside the country, due to numerous and widespread Vietnamese emigrants. Outside Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics, as ''Nguyen''. Nguyen was the seventh most common family name in Australia in 2006 (second only to Smith in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

phone books), and the 54th most common in France. It was the 41st most common surname in Norway in 2020 and tops the foreign name list in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. In the United States, Nguyen is the 38th most-common surname and is shared by more than 437,000 individuals, according to the 2010 Census; it was the 57th and 229th most-common surname, respectively, in the

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

and

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

censuses. It is also the most common exclusively East Asian surname. It is ranked 124th in the U.S. Social Security Index. Nguyen was the 57th most common surname in the whole of Australia in 2022.

Subfamilies

In Vietnamese tradition, people are referred to by their personal names and not by their family names even in formal situations. However, some groups distinguish themselves from other Nguyễn by passing elements of their names that are usually considered middle names to their children. This practice is more common with male than with female children. Some of the prominent subgroups within the Nguyễn family are: * Nguyễn Phước or Nguyễn Phúc (阮福): Surname for the

family members, and all members of the

emperors. * Nguyễn Đình * Nguyễn Hữu * Nguyễn Cảnh * Nguyễn Khắc * Nguyễn Tiến * Nguyễn Đức * Nguyễn Minh * Nguyễn Thanh * Nguyễn Ngọc * Nguyễn Văn * Nguyễn Quang * Nguyễn Xuân * Nguyễn Huy * Nguyễn Hoàng * Tôn Thất (Tôn Nữ for females): surname for members of the

royal family that were not direct descendants of the Emperor.

Pronunciation

The Vietnamese pronunciation is in Northern dialect or in Southern dialect, in both cases, in one syllable. is the

velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek 'fragment'), is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''E ...

found in the middle of the English word ''singer''. is the

semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...

found in the English word ''win''. is a

rising diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

, the sound of which is similar to the diphthong found in the British English

Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...

of ''ear''. Finally, occurs in the English word ''net''. Furthermore, in Vietnamese Nguyễn is also pronounced with a

tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...

. In Southern Vietnam, it is pronounced with the dipping tone: the pitch of the voice first drops from a mid-level to the bottom of the speaker's range of pitch and then rises back to mid. In Northern Vietnam, it is pronounced with the creaky rising tone: the pitch of the voice rises from mid-level to the top of the speaker's range of pitch, but with constricted vocal cords, akin to a

glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

in the middle of the vowel. Common pronunciations by English speakers include , and .

Changes of family name

There have been various points in Vietnam's history at which people have changed their family name to Nguyễn. When the

fell in 1232,

, who orchestrated its overthrow, forced descendants of the Lý dynasty to adopt the name due to the

naming taboo A naming taboo is a cultural taboo against speaking or writing the given names of exalted persons, notably in China and within the Chinese cultural sphere. It was enforced by several laws throughout Imperial China, but its cultural and possibly ...

surrounding Trần Lý, grandfather to emperor Trần Cảnh. From 457 to

(1401), in Hải Dương and a part of

Haiphong Haiphong or Hai Phong (, ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of , consisting of 8 urban districts, 6 rural districts and 1 municipal city (sub-city). Two o ...

today there is the district of the Phí family (Vietnamese: ). At the end of the Lý and the

there were many people who changed their names to Nguyễn and Nguyễn Phí. By the

Lê dynasty The Lê dynasty, also known in historiography as the Later Lê dynasty (, chữ Hán: 朝後黎, chữ Nôm: 茹後黎), officially Đại Việt (; Chữ Hán: 大越), was the longest-ruling List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, h ...

, the court changed the name of the district to Kim Thành. When the

fell in 1592, their descendants changed their family name to Nguyễn. Trần Quang Diệu (like his wife Bùi Thị Xuân) worked as a major officer for the

Tây Sơn dynasty The Tây Sơn dynasty (; , (chữ Hán: 朝西山; Chữ Nôm: 茹西山), officially Đại Việt (Chữ Hán: 大越), was an imperial dynasty of Vietnam. It originated in a revolt led by three peasant brothers with the surname Nguyễn, r ...

, against

Nguyễn Ánh Gia Long (Chữ Hán, Chữ hán: 嘉隆) ( (''Hanoi, North''), (''Ho Chi Minh City, South''); 8 February 1762 – 3 February 1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh (阮暎), was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynas ...

. After the Tây Sơn dynasty was defeated, his children adopted various names or changed names (one of them into Nguyễn) in order to flee retaliation. Historically in Vietnam and many East Asian countries, the rulers may let their courtiers share their family name as a reward for their loyalty. Many officials thereby changed their name to match that of the last Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945). Civilians also adopted the name during the Trịnh–Nguyễn Civil War for purposes of social climbing, having migrated from the north to the south. Even the Tây Sơn Brothers changed their name to Nguyễn from Hồ.

Notable people

People with the name include: *Heads of state ( Nguyễn Minh Triết, Nguyễn Phú Trọng,

Nguyễn Xuân Phúc Nguyễn Xuân Phúc (; born 20 July 1954) is a Vietnamese former politician who served as the 11th president of Vietnam from 2021 until his resignation in 2023 amidst a series of corruption scandals. He also was the seventh prime minister from ...

, Nguyễn Xí,

Nguyễn lords The Nguyễn lords (, 主阮; 1558–1777, 1780–1802), also known as the Nguyễn clan (; ), were Nguyễn dynasty's forerunner and a feudal noble clan ruling southern Đại Việt in the Revival Lê dynasty. The Nguyễn lords were membe ...

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (; 5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was a South Vietnam, South Vietnamese military officer and politician who was the Leaders of South Vietnam, president of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975. He was a general in the Repub ...

, Nguyễn Văn Xuân,

Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ (; vi-hantu, 26 May 190812 June 1976) was a South Vietnamese politician who was the first vice president of South Vietnam, serving under President Ngô Đình Diệm from 1956 until Diệm's overthrow and assassinati ...

, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ...) *Poets ( Nguyễn Trãi,

Nguyễn Du Nguyễn Du (; 3 January 1766 – 16 September 1820), courtesy name Tố Như () and art name Thanh Hiên (), is a celebrated Vietnamese poet and musician. He is most known for having written the epic poem '' The Tale of Kiều''. Biography ...

, Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Nguyễn Khoa Điềm). *Catholic clergymen ( Nguyễn Văn Thuận) *Writers ( Viet Thanh Nguyen) *Scientists ( Nam-Trung Nguyen) *Composers, actors ( Dustin Nguyen) *Models ( Nguyễn Thúc Thùy Tiên) *Professional poker players ( Scotty Nguyen) *Professional

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

player ( Dat Nguyen) *Professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

( Lee Nguyen) *Professional

Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation, aka BWF, is the international governing body for the sport of badminton approved by the International Olympic Committee. It was founded on 5 July 1934 as the International Badminton Federation with nine member ...

player Nguyễn Tiến Minh

Hồ Chí Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic ...

was born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and used various names with the surname Nguyễn throughout his career (, ). He was not known as Hồ Chí Minh until late in his life.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nguyen Vietnamese-language surnames Surnames of Vietnamese origin