11/13/09

Top 50 Common Vietnamese Surnames

UPDATE 2018-09-22: Links to my Master's thesis (the "project" mentioned below) are here:

  • Spatial Little Saigon: Mapping an ethnic community, Hamatake, Ben, M.A., CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2014, 72 pages
  • Spatial Little Saigon: Mapping an ethnic community, Map Appendices

  • I'm doing some research for a project at school and ran into this tidbit. Thought I'd share:


    1. Nguyễn

    2. Trần


    3. Phạm

    4. Huỳnh


    5. Phan

    6. Trương

    7. Hoàng

    8. Ngô

    9. Đặng

    10. Đỗ

    11. Bùi



    12. Dương

    13. Lương

    14. Đinh

    15. Trịnh

    16. Lưu

    17. Đoàn

    18. Đào

    19. Thái

    20. Mai

    21. Văn

    22. Cao

    23. Vương

    24. Phùng

    25. Quách

    26. Tạ

    27. Diệp

    28. Tôn

    29. La

    30. Thạch

    31. Thi

    32. Thanh

    33. Đàm

    34. Vong

    35. Triệu

    36. Bưu

    37. Phú

    38. Vĩnh

    39. Quang

    40. Tiều

    41. Hòa

    42. Trang

    43. Giang

    44. Lục

    45. Bành

    46. Nghiêm

    Wikipedia has a nice post on Vietnamese surnames, but they're not all in order. I added the tones so they might be off. Let me know if I muffed your last name! I'll fix it.
    This list is used by the US Department of Justice and is based on several sources:
    Abrahamse A. F., Morrison, P. A. & Bolton, N. M. (1994). Population Research and Policy Review: 13 383-398.
    Barringer, H. R., Gardner, R. W. & Levin, M.J. (1993). Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The Population of the United States in the 1980s.
    Buechley, R. W. (1976). Generally useful ethnic search system: GUESS. University of New Mexico, Cancer Research and Treatment Cetner (mimeo).
    Choi, B. C. K., Hanley, A. J., Holowaty, E. J. & Dale, D. (1993). American Journal of Epidemiology 138: 723-734
    Kuo, J. & Porter, K. (1998). Health status of Asian Americans: United States, 1992-1994.

    travel log
    • 02.13.08 - to the temple with Luan and his mom, good to be back
    • 02.14.08 - Mẫu's alive! and staying for the weekend
    • 02.15.08 - floor hockey and Thái food makes for some strange dreams
    • 02.17.08 - frisbee and swamp monster at the park: fun but I'm pooped!
    • 02.19.08 - just read Triết's response to my last post - game on!
    • 02.20.08 - raining and expected to continue through Sunday - thank goodness!
    • 02.21.08 - 3-hour nap is a bad idea right before bed
    • 02.23.08 - to the beach to watch kites, a baptism @ 5pm, and homemade bulgogi - what a day!
    • 02.25.08 - just gave myself a haircut - woo, cold head!
    • 02.26.08 - 75° and spring cleaning - couldn't feel better
    • 02.27.08 - fed the elders bún đậu tonight - think it's their first time
    • 03.01.08 - working on new background...
    • 03.02.08 - finalized javascript to change background without muffing up my other scripts
    • 03.03.08 - fhe: "In his strength I can do all things" (Alma 26:12)
    • 03.07.08 - some decisions are harder than others, but some are downright excruciating
    • 03.08.08 - there is life after work... i almost forgot
    • 03.11.08 - the distance between good and bad is much shorter than between better and best
    • 03.12.08 - conversion is sometimes a gradual process, so much so that we don't even notice
    • 03.14.08 - for some reason everything was a little harder today, looking forward for bed!
    • 03.15.08 - last night after blog reading, I missed OnlyBlue, today I find she's back
    • 03.16.08 - best day of my life!
    • 03.19.08 - "Pray for the answer that they've been looking for"
    release notes v1.0 - FINALLY DONE!
    • 12.07 - first thought of starting a new blog
    • 01.08 - busy with election stuff but blog design still on back burner
    • 01.13.08 - first idea to imitate jk rowling with the "desk" theme
    • 01.28.08 - start sketching current design, breaking down development into phases
    • 02.02.08 - election only days away but still drafting final plans
    • 02.04.08 - v0.6 LAUNCH
      • main components (blog body, sidebar, header, etc) designed and implemented
      • styling for font, links, drop caps, etc. finished
    • 02.07.08 - v0.8 LAUNCH
      • image style to imitate polariod
      • moveability - post-it notes and static clings can be repositioned by drag and drop
      • release notes styled and written
    • 02.16.08 - travel log (beta) added in hopes of catching the mundane
    • 02.22.08 - lightbox 2.03 reinstalled and working fine (hopefully - let me know otherwise)
    • 02.26.08 - v0.9 LAUNCH
      • travel log seems to be working, so I'll keep it
      • lightbox also seems to have passed the test, so it's a keeper
      • some credits/info added to bottom (will expand)
      • keeping old Viet terms in archive for future viewing
    • 03.18.08 - v1.0 LAUNCH
      • installation and testing of time-sensitive background completed (for now)