The fall of Saigon in April 1975 marked not only the end of the Vietnam War, but also the start of large-scale Vietnamese immigration to the United States. (An estimated 125,000 Vietnamese refugees were evacuated to the U.S.)
The same year, dozens of Vietnamese names debuted in the U.S. baby name data. Here are the ones I’ve spotted so far:
| Vietnamese Boy Name Debuts, 1975 | Vietnamese Girl Name Debuts, 1975 |
|---|---|
| Viet, 23 baby boys [top debut] Hung, 16 [4th] Nam, 14 [6th] Huy, 13 [7th] Long, 11 Vu, 10 Tran, 9 Duc, 8 Dung, 8 Hoang, 8 My, 8 Nguyen, 8 An, 7 Luan, 7 Phong, 7 Binh, 6 Minh, 6 Quoc, 6 Anh, 5 Hai, 5 Linh, 5 Quang, 5 Tien, 5 Yun, 5 | Anh, 10 baby girls [58th-highest debut] Phuong, 9 Nguyen, 7 Thu, 7 Bich, 6 Linh, 6 Thao, 6 Trang, 6 Chau, 5 Hoa, 5 Lien, 5 Ngoc, 5 Viet, 5 Yen, 5 |
Many other Vietnamese names — including Bao, Chinh, Dao, Giang, Huong, Khanh, Lam, Nguyet, Phuc, Quyen, Suong, Thanh, and Vuong — debuted throughout the rest of the ’70s and into the early ’80s.
One of the Vietnamese babies born at Fort Chaffee in 1975 was Dat Nguyen, who went on to become the first Vietnamese-American to play in the NFL. Even though he was born in America in 1975, his name, Dat, wasn’t popular enough to appear in the U.S. data (that is, it wasn’t wasn’t given to at least five baby boys within a single calendar year) until 1979.