War of the Ho Chi Minh City

One of the primary battlegrounds for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people during the last four decades has been the naming of Vietnam's provinces, districts, cities, towns, streets and institutions. Some places have been known by three or more names since WWII and, in many cases, more than one name is still used.

Urban locations have borne: French names (often of the generals, administrators and martyrs who made French colonialism possible); names commemorating the historical figures chosen for veneration by the South Vietnamese government; and the alternative set of heroes selected by the Hanoi government. Buddhist pagodas have formal names as well as one or more popular monikers. Chinese pagodas bear various Chinese appellations - most of which also have Vietnamese equivalents based on the titles and celestial ranks of those to whom they are consecrated. In the highlands, both Montagnard and Vietnamese names for mountains, villages and so on are in use. The differences in vocabulary and pronunciation between the north, centre and south sometimes result in the use of different words and spellings (such as 'Pleiku' and 'Playcu').

When French control of Vietnam ended in 1954, almost all French names were replaced in both the North and the South. For example, Cap St Jacques became Vung Tau, Tourane was rechristened Danang and Rue Catinat in Saigon was renamed D Tu Do (Freedom) - since reunification it has been known as D Dong Khoi (Uprising). In 1956, the names of some of the provinces and towns in the South were changed as part of an effort to erase from popular memory the Viet Minh's anti-French exploits, which were often known by the places where they took place. The village-based southern Communists, who by this time had gone underground, continued to use the old designations and boundaries in running their regional, district and village organizations. The peasants quickly adapted to this situation, using one set of names for where they lived when dealing with the Communists and a different set of names when talking to representatives of the South Vietnamese government. Later, US soldiers in Vietnam gave nicknames (such as China Beach near Danang) to places whose Vietnamese names they found inconvenient or difficult to remember or pronounce. This helped to make a very foreign land seem a bit more familiar.

After reunification, the first order of Saigon's provisional municipal Military Management Committee was to change the name of the city to 'Ho Chi Minh City', a decision confirmed in Hanoi a year later. The new government immediately began changing street names considered inappropriate a process which is still continuing and renamed almost all the city's hotels, dropping English and French names in favour of Vietnamese ones. The only French names still in use are those of Albert Calmette (1893-1934, developer of a tuberculosis vaccine), Marie Curie (1867-1934, who won the Nobel Prize for her research into radioactivity), Louis Pasteur (1822-95, chemist and bacteriologist) and Alexandre Yervin (1863-1943, discoverer of the plague bacillus).

All this renaming has had mixed results. Streets, districts and province, are usually known by their new names. As if navigating your way around Saigon wasn't confusing enough, in 1999 when the municipal Peoples' Committee set out to name 25 new city streets, they also decided to rename another 152! This makes using anything but the latest street maps a risky proposition, though fortunately most of important streets in the city centre have not changed name, and tourist maps of the city are also updated annually.

Most residents of Ho Chi Minh City still prefer to call the place Saigon, especially since Ho Chi Minh City is in fact a huge area that stretches from near Cambodia all the way to the South China Sea.