Vietnamese names generally consist of three parts: a family name, a middle name, and a given name, used in that order. Like their Chinese, Korean, and other counterparts, this is in accordance to the East Asian system of personal names. In a deviation from the East Asian naming system, a person will be referred to either by their whole name or by their given name in normal usage.

Due to the ubiquity of the major family names such as Tran and Nguyen, a person is often referred to by their middle name along with their given name in Vietnamese media and youth culture.

The Vietnamese language is tonal, and so are Vietnamese names. The same spelling with different tones are different names, which can confuse non-Vietnamese people when the diacritics are dropped when used outside of Vietnam.