In every country, there are the most popular surnames, and there are also the most used surnames. According to the survey, the most popular and most used surname in Vietnam is "Nguyen", because people with the surname Nguyen account for 40% of the total population of Vietnam. This is not an exaggeration, for example, the current general secretary and president of Vietnam is named Nguyen Phu Trong, the prime minister of the government is called Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and even the name of the president of the country's parliament is Nguyen Thi Kim Yin. The fact that these Vietnamese state leaders are all surnamed Nguyen shows how large the proportion of the Nguyen population in Vietnam is. So, why is there so many people in Vietnam with the surname Nguyen?
Distribution map of common surnames in Vietnam
Originally an ancient clan living in northern China, the Nguyen surname began to migrate on a large scale due to war and various other reasons. The Nguyen family tree records three large collective migrations of this clan in the direction of cross-toe. The first migration occurred during the Southern Dynasty Liu Song Dynasty, when Empress WenXuan was attacked by Western Wei, and this Ruan clan entered Guangxi from Hunan and entered Jiaozhou from Guangxi; some Ruan clan people moved into the Minguang area, which was the first large-scale collective migration recorded by the Ruan family.
President of the Vietnamese Parliament Nguyen Thi Kim Yin
The second migration took place during the late Chen and early Sui dynasties, when the Nguyen clan, who had developed maritime trade in the Fujian-Guangdong region, gradually developed into a hegemon of maritime shipping trade with the support and encouragement of local officials. However, in the early years of the Late Chen and Sui Dynasties, due to the sui army moving south, the powerful Ruan clan was regarded as a remnant of the Chen Dynasty and was militarily suppressed, and after Emperor Wen of Sui unified the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Ruan clan living in the Minguang area, in order to escape the war, a part of the Ruan clan moved into Jiaozhou and Linyi. These Ruan people brought the more advanced material and spiritual culture of the Central Plains Dynasty to the local indigenous people, which was supported by the local people, and they gradually developed into a feudal separatist force that dominated one side and held heavy power.
Vietnamese people
The 3rd Great Migration of the Nguyen Clan occurred in the late Southern Song Dynasty, because the Mengyuan Iron rode south, the Nguyen clan people traveled to many places, and eventually moved to jiaotong and Annam. After these three large-scale population migrations, the Nguyen surname in Vietnam eventually developed and grew, and entered a period of peak development.
Of course, the reason why Nguyễn was able to become a large surname of the Vietnamese population is also related to the change of dynasties in ancient Vietnam. In 1232 AD, the Vietnamese Lee family was overthrown by Chen Shoudu, according to historical records, after the Chen Dynasty replaced the Li Dynasty, Chen Shoudu ordered all the population surnamed Li in the country to be changed to the Nguyen surname, although the Vietnamese history books do not mention the reason for Chen Shoudu's practice, but it invisibly grew the population with the surname Nguyen.
An official of the Nguyen Dynasty
Of course, the scale of the Nguyen surname in Vietnam today is also related to the French who colonized Vietnam. In 1802, Nguyen Anh colluded with the French colonists to overthrow the original Thuy Son regime and establish the Nguyen Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in Vietnam. In the 19th century, Vietnam was completely reduced to a French colony, and when the colonial rulers wanted to conduct a national census in Vietnam, they found that many of the lower-class people in Vietnam did not have surnames, because during the feudal dynasty, only Vietnamese nobles could enjoy surnames. To this end, the French colonial rulers proposed to let these low-level people without surnames use the surnames of the last Dynasty of Vietnam as surnames, which made the Vietnamese Nguyen clan grow unprecedentedly, which is why 40% of the population in Vietnam has the surname Nguyen.