Can you tell me What Vietnam means? I don't get why they call it Vietnam.?

Question

Can you tell me ,when did they start calling it " vietnam". I have to do a essay about Vietnam, but i have no idea why they call this country Vietnam, and if possible give me some info about vietnam too. Thanks

Answer 1

The majority of the people of Vietnam are descendants of the people called the Viets who settled in what is now Northern Vietnam several thousand years ago. For centuries, they referred to their country as Dai Viet (the Great  Viet Country) or Nam Viet (the Southern Viet Country).

The reason Nam Viet was used was because the Viets originally came from China and Nam Viet means the country of the Viets of the South as distinguished from an ancient Viet country (the Chinese called Yueh) that existed further to the North, in what is now China.

In 1802, Prince Nguyen Anh unified the country after it was divided during a long Civil War and ascended the throne with the title of Emperor Gia Long. He renamed the country Viet Nam which is a variation of the old name Nam Viet.

Nam means South and Viet means the Viet people so Nam Viet means Southern Viet. However, written that way, Nam Viet, is to follow the Chinese way of putting the adjective before the noun (as also in English). In Vietnamese (as well as in a number of other languages), the noun is placed first and the adjective follows hence Nam Viet became Viet Nam or Vietnam as we know it today.

For more information on the country, go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

Answer 2

The Viet Nam have been named by Nguyen dynasty in 1802.

Viet it mean the Viet Ethnic it is now 80% of Vietnam population and Nam it mean South. Viet Nam it mean the Viet Ethnic living in the south.

Answer 3

Most simply put, in Chinese, "Vietnam" (technically, a cognate of Vietnam) means "beyond the southern border".

Answer 4

I can tell you the answer of Tom is very clear, I can contribute another story about the word "Viet"come from the name of a kind of a famous BIRD called Lac Viet - chim Viet