Etymology
The name Việt Nam (pronounced [viə̂tˀ nāːm], chữ Hán: 越南), literally "Viet South", means "Viet of the South" per Vietnamese word order or "South of the Viet" per Classical Chinese word order.[16] A variation of the name, Nanyue (or Nam Việt, 南越), was first documented in the 2nd century BC.[17] 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".[18] At that time, it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang.[19] In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south.[19]
Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, 'Yue'/'Việt' referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.[18][19] From the 3rd century BC, the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of southern China and northern Vietnam, with particular ethnic groups called Minyue, Ouyue, 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').[18][19][20]
The term 'Baiyue'/'Bách Việt' first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC.[21] By the 17th and 18th centuries AD, educated Vietnamese apparently referred to themselves as người Việt (Viet people) or người Nam (southern people).[22]
The form Việt Nam (越南) is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình. The name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Hải Phòng that dates to 1558.[23] In 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (who later became Emperor Gia Long) established the Nguyễn dynasty. In the second year of his rule, he asked the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing dynasty to confer on him the title 'King of Nam Việt / Nanyue' (南越 in Chinese character) after seizing power in Annam. The Emperor refused because the name was related to Zhao Tuo's Nanyue, which included the regions of Guangxi and Guangdong in southern China. The Qing Emperor, therefore, decided to call the area "Việt Nam" instead,[j][25] meaning "South of the Viet" per Classical Chinese word order but the Vietnamese understood it as "Viet of the South" per Vietnamese word order.[16] Between 1804 and 1813, the name Vietnam was used officially by Emperor Gia Long.[j] It was revived in the early 20th century in Phan Bội Châu's History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDĐ).[26] The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when the imperial government in Huế adopted Việt Nam.[27]