Sunday, July 5, 2020

Culture through English A: Most common names in Vietnam・ベトナムの一般的な名字

Hello!




How are you? Today, let's look at Vietnamese names!


You might notice an important point - that Vietnamese surnames (名字match to kanji


Before the French came and colonized (植民した) Vietnam in the early 19th century, the Vietnamese language was written in Chinese hanzi - the Japanese version of which is kanji. Since then, however, the Vietnamese language is written in a version of romaji

In Vietnam, the most common surname is Nguyễn (阮「グエン」).  


Activity/homework

Watch this video about Vietnamese names. Watch it as many times as you want or need, and answer the questions below it in your notebooks. 

(If you cannot see the video here, go to this link, or go to YouTube and look for "Vietnamese Culture #2: Vietnamese Names" at https://youtu.be/dPeSxwvjiTc)




1. How many names do most Vietnamese people have?  
2. Where does the surname (family name) come in the naming order?
3. What percentage of the Vietnamese population uses Nguyễn as a family name?
4. What do women do with their own family names when they get married? 
    * What is one purpose of a woman’s family name when she gets married? 
5. What is the main purpose of a middle name in Vietnamese? 
    * What is another purpose of a middle name? 
6. Who usually decides the given names in Vietnamese culture? 
7. Where do given names come from in Vietnamese? 
8. What kinds of meanings do given names have in Vietnamese? 

I hope you find this interesting!


Image: By Hintha - Lê Trung Hoa (2005) Họ và tên người Việt Nam, Hà Nội, Việt Nam: NXB Khoa học Xã hội (Social Sciences Publishing House), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21862789
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the content. All rights reserved to the copyright holder(s). Uploaded for classroom use only. 

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