Added: 02/22/2007 |
Names are an important part of human beings culture. Names provide people with an essential portion of their identity. Also, there are different names depending on a person's nationality or cultural background. In other words, there are Mexican names, Irish names, German names, and Jewish names. In fact, the name 'Rachel' is a Jewish name.
The name Vietnamese generally consist of three parts: a family name, a middle name, and a given name that are used in that order. Like their Chinese, Korean, and some of their Thai counterparts, this is in accordance to the East Asian system of personal names. In a deviation from the East Asian naming system, a person will be referred to as either by their whole name or by their given name in normal usage. The Vietnamese language is tonal and so are Vietnamese names. The same spelling with different tones are different names can be tricky when the diacritics are dropped when the name Vietnamese is used outside of Vietnam.
The Vietnamese family name is positioned first and is passed on from the father to his children. It is estimated that there are around one hundred family names in use; however, some names are far more common than other names. The name Nguyen is estimated to be used by more than forty percent of the Vietnamese population. In Vietnamese cultural practice, women almost always keep their family names once they marry, just as in other Eastern Asian cultures including Chinese culture, to the North and Northeast. Some Vietnamese have a dual family name. Usually, it is a combination of the father’s family name and the mother’s family name.
The name Vietnamese has a middle name too. The middle name usually serves three purposes:
1.It is used to indicate a person’s generation.
2.It is used to separate branches of a big family.
3.It is used to indicate a person’s position in the family; this is also known as birth order.
The Vietnamese given name is the primary form of address in the Vietnamese culture it is chosen by the parents and it usually has a literal meaning in the Vietnamese culture. Women’s names usually represent beauty such as bird and flower names. Men’s names often reflect attributes that the parents want in their child such as modesty and honesty. The name Vietnamese is wonderful and mysterious.
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