Vietnamese naming convention

Skidder · 9 Mar 2021 at 14:16

Hi, Is anyone Vietnamese / familiar with naming convention? I am communicating for work with someone called Ha The Anh. Am I right that it is surname, middle, first. To be informal am I OK addressing him as Anh?

Thanks

Martynt74 · 9 Mar 2021 at 14:38

I believe so, We have someone in our Vietnamese site called Lee Bee Yen, and everyone has always referred to her as Yen.

Hades · 9 Mar 2021 at 14:40

Wikipedia agrees with you.

Strangely I worked with a Vietnamese chap and we called him by the middle name.

Martynt74 · 9 Mar 2021 at 14:45

Hades said:
Wikipedia agrees with you.

Strangely I worked with a Vietnamese chap and we called him by the middle name.

Could be the HR database was wrong?

Using my example. The system has the employee as "Bee Yen Lee" and so i thought that we referred to the middle name and was going to post accordingly. However when opening up an email from her, the signature shows "Lee Bee Yen" in which case we'd be using the last naming method. I would assume she's corrected the email signature with the correct version, but never bothered fixing the IT systems.

Skidder · 9 Mar 2021 at 15:00

Does using the full name (as in all 3) sound wierd or is that just polite? I don't know him well.

Dis86 · 9 Mar 2021 at 20:43

Skidder said:
Does using the full name (as in all 3) sound wierd or is that just polite? I don't know him well.

Would you refer to me as Dave Smith when you addressed me? Or just...Dave?

Rotty · 9 Mar 2021 at 23:25

The Vietnamese I have on FB seem to change their name every few weeks so it's anyone's guess

Quartz · 10 Mar 2021 at 00:17

Skidder said:
Hi, Is anyone Vietnamese / familiar with naming convention? I am communicating for work with someone called Ha The Anh. Am I right that it is surname, middle, first. To be informal am I OK addressing him as Anh?

Why don't you just ask him?

martin363 · 10 Mar 2021 at 04:45

Yes. As someone who lives in Vietnam and has a colleague called Anh (in this case a she).

Ha is the surname, Anh the first name. generally in Vietnam if you are older than the individual, or friendly you would refer to him only by his first name, Anh. If you were younger or being formal you would refer to him by both the first and middle names, Anh The. or Mr Ha... It shows respect for the individual using the names in that way in Vietnam.

You can also use just the middle names, again this is more formal. I have a colleague Hoa Lan (means Orchid) and I call her Hoa Lan, as she is a senior individual in the office and older, but then we have another lady who is even more senior (in that she has been in the company longer), rather than being more senior..... and everyone just refers to her as Lan, her middle name.

Hierarchy is a big thing in Vietnam, and respect comes from age and time served...