Names of Vietnam

Throughout its history, Vietnam has been referred to by many names, either for the whole country or parts of it.

Throughout the history of Vietnam, official and unofficial names have been used in reference to the territory of Vietnam. Its early northern polity was called Văn Lang during the Hồng Bàng dynasty, Âu Lạc under Thục dynasty, Nam Việt during the Triệu dynasty, Vạn Xuân during the Early Lý dynasty, Đại Cồ Việt during the Đinh dynasty and Early Lê dynasty. Starting in 1054, the country was called Đại Việt (Great Việt). During the Hồ dynasty, Vietnam was called Đại Ngu.

Việt Nam (listen^ⓘ in Vietnamese) is a variation of Nam Việt (Southern Việt), a name that can be traced back to the Triệu dynasty (2nd century BC, also known as Nanyue Kingdom). The word Việt originated as a shortened form of Bách Việt, a word used to refer to a people who lived in what used to be southern China, during ancient times. The name Việt Nam, with the syllables in the modern order, first appears in the 16th century in a poem attributed to Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm. Vietnam was mentioned in Josiah Conder's 1834 Dictionary of Geography, Ancient and Modern as the other name to refer to Annam.

Annam, which originated as a Chinese name in the seventh century, remained the common name for the country until and during the French colonial period. Nationalist writer Phan Bội Châu revived the name Vietnam in the early 20th century. From 1945, when rival communist and anti-communist governments were established, both adopted this as the country's official name. In English, the two syllables are usually combined into one word, Vietnam. However, Viet Nam is still recognized as the standard name by the United Nations, by ISO and by the Vietnamese government, with the government even recently endorses using "Viet Nam" over "Vietnam". In the past, the hyphenated spelling "Viet-Nam" was the standardized spelling for the country being recognized by all three Vietnamese governments (Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, Republic of Viet-Nam and Republic of South Viet-Nam), however this spelling has become obsoleted in modern context.

The term "Việt" (Yue) (Chinese: 越; pinyin: Yuè; Cantonese Yale: Yuht; Wade–Giles: Yüeh⁴; Vietnamese: Việt) in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 BC), and later as "越". At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang. In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south. Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC Yue/Việt referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.

From the 3rd century BC the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of south and southwest China and northern Vietnam, with particular states or groups called Minyue, Ouyue (Vietnamese: Âu Việt), Luoyue (Vietnamese: Lạc Việt), etc., collectively called the Baiyue (Bách Việt, Chinese: 百越; pinyin: Bǎiyuè; Cantonese Yale: Baak Yuet; Vietnamese: Bách Việt; lit. 'Hundred Yue/Viet'; ). The term Baiyue/Bách Việt first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC.

According to Ye Wenxian (1990), apud Wan (2013), the ethnonym of the Yuefang in northwestern China is not associated with that of the Baiyue in southeastern China.

In 207 BC, former Qin dynasty general Zhao Tuo/Triệu Đà founded the kingdom of Nanyue/Nam Việt (Chinese: 南越; lit. 'Southern Yue/Việt') with its capital at Panyu (modern Guangzhou). This kingdom was "southern" in the sense that it was located south of other Baiyue kingdoms such as Minyue and Ouyue, located in modern Fujian and Zhejiang. Several later Vietnamese dynasties followed this nomenclature even after these more northern peoples were absorbed into China.