Name Tracing

I had an interesting Vietnamese lesson yesterday. My teacher and I went over the origins of my name and he said I had a very interesting one. He also said he could see what my parents were trying to do with the formation of mine and my sister's name.

For those of you who don't know my full name it's (written in the Vietnamese order): Nguyen Thi Dao Ngoc Hieu (Cdn way would be Hieu Ngoc Thi Dao Nguyen). For one Nguyen is the most common Vietnamese name you'll see. Considering there are about 84 million people in Vietnam (compared to Canada's 33 million) Mr. Hung said about 50% of the population has the family name Nguyen, so think twice before asking me if I am related to so and so just because we have the same last name ...

Dao is my mom's maiden name, so it is there to carry on my mother's side of the family. Thi is a traditional middle name for women while Ngoc (means Pearl) is a modern middle name and normally people only have one middle name. For women you carry on your mom's middle name which my mom's is Ngoc and for sons they would carry on their dad's middle name. In the old times almost all women had the middle name Thi, but other names started becoming popular that it started to die out. So really my middle names are a combination of traditional and modern Vietnamese names.

Mr. Hung also said I was 'special' to have the name Hieu since only about 10% of Hieu's are females. Not that I am complaining, but my sister's name means beautiful while mine means to love your parents?! That must be why I am the one with the heavy conscience and my sister likes to shop ... joking Diem!