Vietnamese Names

Words and names are monosyllabic.
The only consonant blends are ng and nh. There are no consonant blends at the ends of words such as "sk," "bl," "rg," etc.
There are only five final consonants: m, n, p, t, and c.
Vietnamese is a tonal language. The six tones used will change the pronunciation and consequently the meaning of words. Four examples are:
- ma~ --> means horse
- ma. --> means rice seeding
- ma' --> means mother
- ma --> means ghost
There are six accent marks which can also change the pronunciation and therefore the meaning of a word. Two examples are:
- ma^'t --> means lost
- ma't --> means fresh, cool
There are what appears to be inconsistent pronunciations of some vowels, e.g., a' and a should be different because of the accent mark but many sound the same as a result of the context of sounds surrounding the vowels. Some names may appear to be spelled with the same vowel but be pronounced differently. Nam can be heard as nahm and Pham can be heard as fan.

First Names	Pronunciation	Last Names	Pronunciation
Chi	chee	Bui	boy
Cuc	kuk	Do	doh
Diem	yeeyim	Doan	dohan
Duc	duk	Duong	yung
Dung	yuhng	Ho	hoh
Duong	yoong	Hoang	hwang
Hanh	hahn	Le	lay
Ho	hoh	Ly	lee
Hoa	hwa	Ngo	nwo
Hong	howng	Nguyen	nwen
Hung	huhng	Pham	faam
Lan	lahn	Phan	fan
Liem	leeyim	Ta	taah
Lien	leeyin	Tang	tahng
Loc	lowk	To	toh
Nam	nahm	Tran	truhn
Nga	nga	Truong	truhng
Nguyet	nwyit	Vo	vah
Mai	mah-ee	Vu	vu
Minh	min	Vuong	vwuhng
Pham	fam
Phu	foo
Thi	tee
Thien	teeyen
Tho	toy or tahoo
Thuy	twee
Tuan	twahn, twuhn
Tuyet	tweeyit
Viet	wee-et
Xuan	swuhn

Thanks to Truc Nguyen for improving the accuracy of this page!

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updated May 24, 2006