Indexing, sorting and name order reversal Due to foreigners’ limited familiarity with writing and
typing Vietnamese diacritics, and to avoid encoding errors that may corrupt font display, Vietnamese names are often written without diacritics in English, such as "
Ho Chi Minh" instead of "Hồ Chí Minh", "Vo Nguyen Giap" instead of "
Võ Nguyên Giáp". However, this may lead to pronunciation distortions that even Vietnamese speakers cannot accurately verify when the name is transliterated back into Vietnamese with diacritics. For example, surname
Đoàn () vs
Doãn (), both become
Doan when diacritics are omitted and can only distinguish by
IPA or
respelling. Based on the Vietnamese custom of addressing individuals by the last monosyllable of their primary name, the English-language
Chicago Manual of Style indexes Vietnamese names according to the "primary-name, surname middle-name", with a cross-reference placed in regards to the surname.
Ngô Đình Diệm would be listed as "Diem, Ngo Dinh" and
Võ Nguyên Giáp would be listed as "Giap, Vo Nguyen". In Vietnamese-language sources, names are also generally organized in this manner. However, indexing the name in the form "Giap, Vo Nguyen" can be misleading as it suggests that "Võ Nguyên" is the surname. Likewise, when the comma is omitted such as "Giap Vo Nguyen", it may also confuse Western readers by implying that the middle name "Nguyên" is the "last name" because it appears at the end of the name, whereas in reality the person’s actual surname is solely "
Võ". Nowadays, to avoid problems caused by mistakes with surnames, Vietnamese names in English are commonly indexed according to "middle-name primary-name surname" in the
Western order such as "Nguyen Giap Vo" instead of "Giap Vo Nguyen", to determine exactly the surname "Vo", which corresponds to the true "last name" in English texts (especially in media such as TV on-screen graphics, websites, and social media at sports events). At the very least, this helps Western readers identify the correct surname "Võ", rather than mistaking the middle name "Nguyen" for the surname and confusing it with "
Nguyễn". • In recent years, many English-language sports programs and events have
visually emphasized surnames by through bolding or
all capitalization such as "Nguyen Giap VO". However, even when emphasis is applied, but mistakenly highlighting with the middle name as well can still cause misunderstanding among readers, due to the custom of addressing people by the final syllable of the primary name in Vietnamese culture. For example, emphasizing incorrectly such as "Giap VO NGUYEN" or "VO NGUYEN Giap" may be misinterpreted as a
compound surnames, whereas the correct emphasis should be "Nguyen Giap VO" or "VO Nguyen Giap", because surname is solely "Võ". Similarly, in instances of
alphabetization by surname with comma (
lexical name order) according to the "surname, given name", his name must be indexed correctly as "Vo, Nguyen Giap", and not as "Vo Nguyen, Giap". • In the Olympics, name of swimmer
Nguyễn Thị Ánh Viên was incorrectly displayed on TV on-screen graphics as "Vien NGUYEN THI ANH" at the Rio 2016 and "Anh Vien NGUYEN THI ANH" at the Tokyo 2020. Her name must be displayed correctly as "Thi Anh Vien NGUYEN" or "NGUYEN Thi Anh Vien", because her surname is solely "Nguyễn". • The traditional
Eastern order, such as "Vo Nguyen Giap"
, is also applied, mainly when using English in Vietnam. However in
Olympics' events, while Chinese, Korean, Japanese athletes' name is displayed in the format of "SURNAME Given-name", Vietnamese athletes' name is still displayed in "Given-name SURNAME" on TV on-screen graphics, due to Vietnam has not yet been included in the countries list of
Use and rules of each participant name > TV Name "Switching" in the document
Language Guidelines & Participant Names of the Olympic Data Feed, which has included almost countries in the
East Asian cultural sphere such as China, Korea, and Japan (formerly Japan was also treated with the Western order until has been included since 2020). Conversely, in almost badminton tournaments of
BWF's system, some players' name from Vietnam is displayed in the traditional Eastern order, while Japan's one is not. • For example, name of badminton player
Nguyễn Thuỳ Linh is displayed as "Thuy Linh NGUYEN" in Olympics and "NGUYEN Thuy Linh" in BWF's tournaments. Due to the high frequency of the same surnames in Vietnamese names (having around one-third of the Vietnamese people using the surname
Nguyễn), it has also become more popular to be referred by given name in English. For example,
Nguyễn Tiến Minh can be referred to as "(Mr.) Tiến Minh" or simply as "(Mr.) Minh". Addressing by surname such as "(Mr.) Nguyễn" is also used, but less commonly when using English in Vietnam. Additionally, there are certain cases in which Vietnamese personal names when written in full-name form in English, are rearranged symmetrically around the middle name by swapping the surname and the final syllable of the given name, following the English-style order of "first-middle-last". This stems from a confusion that Vietnamese middle names, due to be located at the "middle", would be equivalent to Western middle names. For example,
Võ Nguyên Giáp is reordered as "Giap Nguyen Vo",
Trần Lê Quốc Toàn is reordered as "Toan Le Quoc Tran". However, as
mentioned earlier, the issue here is not about its position, but the fundamentally different ways in which Vietnamese middle names and Western middle names are used: • Vietnamese middle names are not used independently but serve only as the prefix to complement the primary name; therefore, it should precede the primary name such as "Nguyen Giap" and "Le Quoc Toan". If not, this arrangement breaks the standard structure of Vietnamese given name such as "Giap Nguyen" and "Toan Le Quoc". This differs from tradional English given names, in which middle names come after the first name. • Moreover, this ordering can lead to misunderstandings about given name when dealing with different types of official documents. For instance, some forms provide a dedicated "Middle Name" field (which is usually optional to fill), while others (such as the IELTS registration form) do not, this may result in the given name being recorded as "Giap Nguyen" or "Giap" (omitted middle name) in a document, while being recorded as "Nguyen Giap" in another. Consequently, when a Vietnamese personal name is written in full-name form following Western order, it is often recommended that it be reordered in "middle-name primary-name surname", meaning just focus on that only the surname (in bold) needs to be moved to the last position, while all parts of the given name (underlined) should be left as is, such as
Võ Nguyên Giáp is reordered as "Nguyen Giap
Vo",
Trần Lê Quốc Toàn is reordered as "Le Quoc Toan
Tran". Along with this, when filling in the form of 3-name fields "First Name / Middle Name / Last Name", it is advisable to leave the "Middle Name" field blank and enter the entire "middle-name primary-name" sequence in the "First Name" field, such as "Le Quoc Toan / (blank) / Tran" instead of "Toan / Le Quoc /Tran". This practice helps preserve the Vietnamese given name in its proper form, minimizes complications arising from inconsistent ordering of the given name’s monosyllabic elements across different documents, and remains consistent with cases of surname-based alphabetization in lexical name order which uses the "surname, given name" format, such as "Tran, Le Quoc Toan" rather than "Tran, Toan Le Quoc" (see in
Presentation in passport and paperworks).
Abbreviation There are three common types to abbreviate a Vietnamese name: • Informal: keep the last syllable in full, and abbreviate remains in
initials. • Formal: keep the last two syllables in full, and abbreviate remains in initials. • Keep surname in full, and abbreviate remains in initials. Often used in English if surname in full is mandatory.
Presentation in passport and paperworks , with the standard designation of the person's name.Since 2023, names in
Vietnamese passports have been split into two lines: "surname" and "given names", with the middle name treated as a part with the primary name in order to match the format of "given names". However, because almost all Vietnamese surnames are
monosyllabic and little attention is given to
compound surnames (such as
Hoàng Phủ,
Tôn Thất,
Tôn Nữ,
Âu Dương), the first syllable of a compound surname is often designated as the sole surname, while the second syllable is treated as a middle name. For example: • "Hoàng | Phủ Ngọc Tường" instead of "Hoàng Phủ | Ngọc Tường", due to confusion between
Hoàng Phủ and
Hoàng. • "Tôn | Nữ Thị Ninh" instead of "Tôn Nữ | Thị Ninh" , due to confusion between
Tôn Nữ and
Tôn. Vietnamese people do not have the practice of using
hyphens (e.g., Hoàng-Phủ Ngọc-Tường) or any other markers to indicate the "partition" of their names, and they may sometimes omit their middle names in Western contexts for simplified translation or presentation. The more syllables a name has, the more complicated it becomes to fill it into the required fields. The following shows ways to fill Vietnamese names in Western paperwork. The entries highlighted in the green background indicate the recommended method which is to leave the "Middle Name" field blank and fill all parts of given name including "middle-name primary-name" into "First Name" field, to avoid issues such as surname confusion or incorrect order of Vietnamese given name (ensure that the middle name is always positioned before the primary name as same as in Vietnamese) in procedures like visa applications or airline ticketing. == See also ==