Question

What does “Nam” in Vietnam mean?

Answer 1

According to the book Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư - Wikipedia , there used to be dozen ethics of Viet such as Man Viet, Son Viet, Can Viet, Au Viet, Lac Viet, … which end up in the general name Bach Viet (hundreds of Viet).

Most of the ancient Viet people lived in the south of Nanling mountains (The Five mountains, which located in Guangxi, Guangzhou and the modern Northside of Vietnam).

Viet is a kind of plant growing popularly in the south of Nanling mountains.

Au Viet and Lac Viet are the most growing countries and are emerged by a war into Au Lac nation. After that, Au Lac had been defeated by Nam Viet which is leaded by Trieu Da while Nam Viet is not recognized as a Vietnamese country but Chinese.

After all, Vietnamese people won the total war and take back the land. The word Nam in Viet Nam mostly points out the independence between the history and the development of Vietnamese people and Chinese people. Ancient Vietnamese people are raised by Red River. Chinese people are raised by Yellow River and Yangtze River.

Answer 2

back in the days, there were Baiyue, which consisted of closed to 100 yue(viet) tribes.

our kingdom tribe au lac-lac viet was south(Nam) of that group. That is where the Nam come from, not south of china. South is just in relation to the main Yue(Viet).

Answer 3

Việt Nam: 越南

Việt/Vượt: 越 (cross over)

Nam: 南 (south)

it’s literally mean the land if you cross over the south (of China).

Since Nguyen Anh became the king he ask the Qing’s emperor to change the name of his country to Nam Việt (南越) but the Qing’s emperor said some thing like: “No you little shit, it could easily confuse with the name that Zhao Tou used before ( Triệu dynasty - Wikipedia ) so just name your fucking country as Việt Nam (越南)”

Nguyen Anh did what he said and here we are

Answer 4

The southernmost portion of China was declared a Protectorate named “Annam”, meaning "the Pacified South" in the 7th Century. It had several leaders, until China was expelled in the 10th Century, and became the independent state of Đại Việt .

Answer 5

IMO,.. “ Nam” was a slang, more exactly an abbreviation of Vietnam which was used by US Forces during the VN war. I could be wrong, though bc…I am a Vietnamese origin…????????????????????????????

Answer 6

The meaning of the name Vietnam depends on your interpretation. The origin of its intention is quite varied.

In 1802, Nguyen Phuc Anh asked emperor Jiaqing of China’s Qing Dynasty to bestow Nam Viet as Vietnam’s new name. This is because China always referred to Vietnam as Annam (The Pacified South), a name given by the Tang Dynasty when Vietnam was a province of Tang. As Vietnam expanded, Annam was deemed to not be a fitting name.

But the name brought some alerts to the Qing court as Jiaqing deemed it to be threatening.

The two characters they wish to be bestowed absolutely will not do he said. Nan Yue (Nam Viet) is extremely broad. Examining prior histories shows that it includes the area that is now Guangdong and Guangxi.

But Nguyen Phuc persisted with multiple envoy explaining the intention for the name

Finally Jiaqing gave in and decided to rearrange the name and created Viet Nam. His explanation:

“We have taken the character Viet and moved it to the front to show that it retains its historic territory. We put the character Nam at the end to express its newly bestowed status as a tributary state. It shows that the country is south of the Hundred Yue and of what used to be called Nan Yue.”

However when Nguyen Phuc Anh accepted the name he recorded it in Vietnam’s history differently:

“The Qing emperor decided to move the character Viet to the front to show that our country extended the old territory and extended the glory of the past. He placed the character Nam at the end to show that our country extends southward and has a new mandate.”

So the conclusion is depending on which perspective you take, the word Nam can be interpreted differently.

Answer 7

We call China is North/Northern người phương bắc, and ourselves are Nam (south/Southern) (dân Nam, or Nước Nam) Southerners/Southern Country.

Vietnamese language is called Tiếng Nôm/souther language.

For example: Poem “Nam Quốc Sơn Hà” (南國山河) “ Mountains and Rivers of the Southern Country” .

Poem Bình Ngô đại cáo (平吳大誥 Great proclamation upon the pacification of the Wu) wrote: Sông núi đã chia, phong tục Bắc, Nam cũng khác 山川之封域既殊, 南北 之風俗亦異 The mountains and rivers have been divided, and the North’s, South’s customs are also different,

Note: The mountains and rivers mean country.

Now we call western for Europe, USA, Canada, Australia (các nước phương tây), eastern for asia (các nước phương đông).

English calls oversea for foreigner but French cannot call German are overseas

Viet and Nam in Vietnam are same mention. I prefer to call Đại Việt (Great Viet).

Answer 8

Nam is the South. Viet Nam is the land in the South of Yue people. The patriotism of people in the neighbor countries next to China was described in ancient poem

胡馬依北風， 越 鳥巢 南 枝 Hú mǎ yī běi fēng，y uè niǎo cháo nán zhī - Hồ mã tê Bắc phong, Việt điểu sào Nam chi.

The horses of Hu people always neigh when feeling the Northern wind; the birds of Yue people always perch on the branches facing to the South.

You can see the term Yue (Viet) and Nan (Nam) in the poem.

"胡馬依北風，越鳥巢南枝。"全詩賞析_意思_翻譯_作者_全文_解釋_中華古詩文古書籍網

Answer 9

It’s a long story. Initially, I would like to say that we, the current Vietnamese, are the descendants of the Viet peoples, who inhabited from present-day South China to present-day North Vietnam. They are called Bách Việt (literally, in the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, “Bách” means “hundred”, but you could understand as “many”). The origin of the word “Việt”. It used to be understood that “Việt” means “ax” because the Việt peoples used axes to cut down trees and hunt. However, archeological evidence shows that they developed agriculture up to a certain level.

(The map below just illustrates some of all Việt people)

After the unification of China by the Qin dynasty, Sinicization began. The Qin started eliminating and assimilating many Việt people. Only some Việt peoples could pass the process, they were Lạc Việt, Âu Việt, and Nam Việt. Lạc Việt and Âu Việt unified, becoming Âu Lạc, under the leadership of An Dương Vương. Then, Nam Việt (present-day Guangdong and Guangxi, provinces of China) conquered Âu Lạc, unifying the Việt people again. The following event is the Han dynasty’s conquest of Nam Việt.

(The map below was the territories of Nam Việt)

About 2000 years later, the first king of the Nguyễn dynasty, Gia Long, required the Qing dynasty that his country would be called Nam Việt. The purpose in this requirement was to conquer back Guangdong and Guangxi. Realizing this purpose, the Qing emperor at that moment was Jiaqing decided to changed the name, from “Nam Việt” to “Việt Nam”. Gia Long accepted it. However, his successor, Minh Mạng, deleted this name and called the country “Đại Nam”. More than one hundred years later, the Nguyễn dynasty collapsed. Vietnamese governments in the North (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and in the South (the State of Vietnam, then the Republic of Vietnam) adopted the name “Việt Nam”. And that name has been used up to today.

Answer 10

It’s ok to write Vietnam or Viet Nam, since we can consider Nam as a root. Nam means South, Vietnam then means the Viets who live to the South (of Great Big Brother China of course)