Nguyễn (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 people bear this

surname In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community. Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...

.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 (, ) 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 Yale romanization of Cantonese, Y ...

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

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

or an ancient Chinese instrument Ruan. 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. 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; vi, Giao Châu) 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 ...

undertaken by Eastern Jin dynasty officer Nguyễn Phu 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 ( vi, Nhà Lý, , chữ Nôm: 茹李, chữ Hán: 李朝, Hán Việt: ''Lý triều'') was a Vietnamese dynasty that existed from 1009 to 1225. It was established by Lý Công Uẩn when he overthrew the Early Lê dynasty an ...

, Trần Thủ Độ forced the descendants of the Lý to change their surname to Nguyễn. When Hồ Quý Ly overturned the Trần dynasty, he killed many of their descendants so when the Hồ dynasty 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, 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. When the

Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (chữ Nôm: 茹阮, vi, Nhà Nguyễn; chữ Hán: 阮朝, vi, Nguyễn triều) was the last Vietnamese dynasty, which ruled the unified Vietnamese state largely independently from 1802 to 1883. During its existence, ...

(the descendants of the

Nguyễn Lords Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this su ...

) took power in 1802, some of the descendants of the Trịnh Lords 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. Distribution of Vietnamese family names

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 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. 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 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

and

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

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 Thất (''Ton That'' or ''Ton-That'', often simplified to ''Tonthat'' in English-language text) is a two-character Vietnamese compound surname, originating from the Nguyễn dynasty. This surname was originally ''Tông Thất'' (), which is der ...

(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 found in the middle of the English word ''singer''. is the semivowel found in the English word ''win''. is a

rising diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, 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 speech ...

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

Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...

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

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