Chinese who had been expelled from Vietnam in 1979. Why do they have Vietnamese names if they are Chinese?

Question

All of the Vietnamese boat people were ethnic Chinese who had been expelled from Vietnam following the Sino-Vietnamese border war in 1979. Why do they have Vietnamese names if they are Chinese?

Answer 1

They have Vietnamese forms of their Chinese name. In fact, all Vietnamese names are directly translatable (AFAIK) into Chinese names. It is the same for Korean names and (mostly) Japanese names. So the Chinese Vietnamese basically used Vietnamese forms of their names.

For me, a third-generation Chinese Singaporean, my surname is essentially a romanised form of my Chinese name 曾 as spoken in the Quanzhou dialect of China. It was romanised because the language of administration in Singapore was (and still is) English. So those in the anglosphere recognised my name as “Chinese” because Chan looks familiar to English speakers as a Chinese name.

In the same way, as the language was administration in Vietnam was (and still is) Vietnamese, the Chinese Vietnamese used the Vietnamese forms of their names. Both of us would not recognise them as “Chinese” because they are written in Vietnamese!

Answer 2

They migrated from the Ming Dynasty

they left in 1979 but their ancestors also left China when the Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming Dynasty, lived for nearly 300 years, because China took advantage of the promise to bring them home to destroy Vietnam's economy. But I don't know if China did or not, which led to Indonesia's ethnic conflict leading to the massacre of overseas Chinese.they left in 1979 but their ancestors also left China when the Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming Dynasty, lived for nearly 300 years, because China took advantage of the promise to bring them home to destroy Vietnam's economy. But I don't know if China did or not, which led to Indonesia's ethnic conflict leading to the massacre of overseas Chinese.

Answer 3

Between April 1975 and March 1979 many of the boat people were ethnic Vietnamese or some ethnic Chinese (or mixed blood). They were escaping because they were former senior officials or soldiers in the illegal South Vietnamese government, or were corrupt businessmen or landlords.

From 1979 most boat people were ethnic Chinese for the reason you stated.

During the reign of Ngo Dihn Diem, many Chinese living in Vietnam were forced to change their names to Vietnamese sounding names, although many are similar in Chinese or Vietnamese. The same went for other ethnic groups, including Khmers.

Answer 4

Chinese, Vietnamese, Tay, Nung, Lolo, Yao, Muong, many Cham,… and even Khmer (in Vietnam) all their name bearing Chinese-style names and surnames. However, there’re differences. Vietnamese female names have the distinctly middle syllabus of Thi. Each ethnic group has predominantly surnames, such as Nguyen and Le of Vietnamese and Hoang and Nung of Tay people, which might be ancient Chinese transliterations of tribal names, or assimilating policy of the Chinese forced upon each tribe.

Answer 5

The same thing to the Viet who have the Khmer names, when Vietnam took over Cambodia in 1979, many Viet left Vietnam and came to live in Cambodia using the Khmer names, the Khmer ID cards and some went with the Khmer refugees to the refugees camp in Thailand so they would be accepted by the UNHCR