50 Years since Sài Gòn Lost its Name

“Considering that the people of Sài Gòn–Gia Định city have always expressed their infinite love for President Ho Chi Minh and earnestly wanted the city to be named after him […]

After discussing the proposal of the Presidium of the National Assembly session; Resolution: Officially name the city of Saigon–Gia Dinh as Ho Chi Minh City.”

Resolution on officially naming Sài Gòn–Gia Định City as Hồ Chí Minh City, dated July 2, 1976.

July 2, 2026 marks a half-century since the name Sài Gòn was first erased from maps and administrative documents.

More than a year after the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam, the first National Assembly of unified Việt Nam issued a resolution to abolish the name Sài Gòn and rename the city “Hồ Chí Minh City,” after the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam. [1]

However, the initiative for this name change did not only appear in 1976. According to Huy Đức in “The Winning Side” (“Bên Thắng Cuộc”), the intention to rename Sài Gòn after President Hồ Chí Minh was conceived by the communist side more than 20 years earlier, when the country was still divided. [2]

In a poem published in 1954, Tố Hữu, then head of the Central Propaganda Department, called Sài Gòn “Hồ Chí Minh City.” There are no records indicating that Hồ Chí Minh reacted to this naming convention at the time.

In the days before and after the takeover of Sài Gòn, even without an official decision to change the name, the “new” name for the city was continuously and openly used by the “victorious side” in speeches and in the media. People kept referring to the city differently, as if Sài Gòn had to be renamed and as if bearing the name of the communist leader were a great honor.

In the year following the fall of South Vietnam, according to Huy Đức, although there were still debates among the leadership in Hà Nội about renaming Sài Gòn—such as the debate between Võ Văn Kiệt and Trường Chinh—the National Assembly ultimately easily voted to approve the city’s new name. [3][4]

“Hồ Chí Minh” has remained the official name ever since, with the informal name “Sài Gòn” still being commonly used by many locals and people from all over the world.

Why did the Vietnamese authorities decide to change the name of Sài Gòn—a name so closely associated with the history of the city? What political implications might have been behind that decision? Can simply changing the name make a place’s old name truly disappear? And then, why has the name Sài Gòn continued to be used for so many years despite being rejected by the government?

What Crime did the Name Commit?

Renaming regions after leaders was a common practice in socialist countries after a new group gained power.

On Jan. 26, 1924, just five days after Vladimir Lenin’s death, the Soviet government renamed the city of Petrograd to Leningrad, meaning “city of Lenin,” as a tribute to the communist leader. [5] Many streets and place names were subsequently renamed after communists, including over 230 places named Lenin. [6]

However, nearly 70 years later, a vote took place in June 1991 in Leningrad to rename the city. [7] In that vote, 57% of participants opposed the current name, with 55% wanting the city to revert to its original name, Saint Petersburg. [8] Finally, in September 1991, in the last few days of the Soviet Russian government, the city abandoned the name of the communist leader and returned to its old name. [9][10]

However, Petrograd becoming Leningrad was not the most notable city-renaming story of this period. More noteworthy is the renaming of numerous cities in socialist countries after Joseph Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953.

In Russia, the city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad, meaning “City of Stalin,” in 1925. In addition, the name of the second-in-command of the Soviet Union appeared in the names of many cities in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and other communist countries. [11]

It is worth noting that, after Stalin’s death in 1953, not only did his regime and ideology come to an end, but many cities that once bore his name were also renamed. For example, just eight years after Stalin’s death, Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd, which remains to this day. [12]

Similar historical situations indicate that the more hastily names were given, the more quickly they were changed.

In Sài Gòn’s case, not only was the city’s name changed according to a very “communist” motif as presented above, but many streets were also renamed with equally significant implications. Post-1975 Sài Gòn was described in the song by Nguyễn Đình Toàn: “We lost Sài Gòn as it lost its name. We lost each street, and people changed its name. When we made a date, we got lost searching for Sài Gòn.”

Gone are the days of the urban metropolis described in the elementary school reading textbooks of the South, a time when almost everyone knew by heart:

“Sài Gòn has the Chương Dương wharf,

It has the Independence Palace; it has Freedom Street.”

After 1975, when they changed the names of regions, people in “Sài Gòn” passed on new “folk songs” to each other:

“The Southern Uprising destroyed Justice

The Dong Khoi Uprising took Freedom.”

These two lines, ignoring the satirical undertones that anyone who hears them will understand, highlight two examples of street name changes in Sài Gòn after the communist takeover of the city.

With Tự Do Street being renamed Đồng Khởi and Công Lý Street being renamed Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, the people of Vietnam had to get used to a series of new street names. 

A study shows that up to 26% of the streets in Sài Gòn after 1975 were renamed, with mainly names associated with the Nguyễn Dynasty, figures from the French colonial period, or political ideals of the Republic of Vietnam being changed. [13]

Among the street names after the renovation, there are quite a few revolutionary figures, such as Gia Long Street becoming Lý Tự Trọng Street, Hiền Vương Street becoming Võ Thị Sáu Street, Hồng Thập Tự Street becoming Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai Street, Cộng Hòa Street becoming Nguyễn Văn Cừ Street, Cường Để Street becoming Tôn Đức Thắng Street, Nguyễn Hoàng Street becoming Trần Phú Street, Thống Nhất Street becoming Lê Duẩn Street, etc.

The practice of the ruling class renaming cities and streets after communist figures or revolutionary events often carries political motives.

In a study published in 2014, authors Phan Thị Diễm Hương and Peter Kang argued that the communist government’s renaming of streets in Sài Gòn aimed to define a new national and political identity for the city. [14]

Notably, the authors point out that a series of political ideals and slogans contained in the street names in Sài Gòn during the Republic of Vietnam era were completely replaced, such as the names Dân Tiến (Progressive People), Công Lý (Justice), Cộng Hòa (Republic), Liên Minh (Alliance), etc., which entirely disappeared. Instead, there were new political messages such as Cách Mạng (Revolution), Giải Phóng (Liberation), etc. [15]

Studies of place-names also indicate that the naming or renaming of land and streets often reflects the efforts to assert the power of the governments, the intention to build a new political identity at the local level, as well as the ambition to change the social memory of the residents. [16] The renaming of land and streets in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe is a familiar subject in many studies of place-names.

However, looking at the reality, does renaming cities and streets actually cause those names to disappear or be truly forgotten?

It’s Easy to Erase, but Hard to Forget.

In the story of renaming Sài Gòn, there’s one detail that’s probably clear to everyone: the name “Sài Gòn,” after years of being removed from administrative spaces by the new government, has not disappeared from the memories or language of many people. 

Regardless of generation, of whether they come from the North or the South, and of ethnicity, so many people continued to refer to the city as “Sài Gòn” that the Vietnamese government had to officially put the name back on the map last year.

In the “merging communes, abolishing districts” campaign in 2025, a ward in the center of the former District One of Hồ Chí Minh City was renamed Sài Gòn.

The People’s Committee of former District One explained that this name was “easy to recognize, familiar to residents and international visitors, convenient for promoting the image, and convenient for promoting tourism, services, and the urban economy.” [17]

The above explanation from the government clearly affirms that the vitality of the name “Sài Gòn” over the past few decades remains strong, always surpassing the new name given by the authorities and always remaining the name that people at home and abroad remember when they imagine this place.

As the lyrics of the song “Do You Still Remember or Have You Forgotten?” by Trịnh Công Sơn suggest, the name “Sài Gòn” doesn’t just exist in people’s memories as a mere designation. It holds within it memories, recollections of familiar things that evoke nostalgia and affection. It could be a delicious dish, a fragrant cup of tea, or a date, but it’s inextricably linked to the place and crystallized in the hearts of each individual.

The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs coined the term “collective memory” to describe the phenomenon where names and scenes within a living space can persist in the memories of its inhabitants, enduring through the years and the passage of time. According to Halbwachs, people will view memories of scenes, spaces, and place names as “points to cling to” in their lives. [18]

From Maurice Halbwachs’ theory, French historian Pierre Nora developed the concept of “memory addresses” (lieux de mémoire/sites of memory) to refer collectively to place-names and locations that endure in the collective memory of communities. According to him, these addresses are not simply names or coordinates, but also contain within them countless events, people, and experiences that the inhabitants have gone through. [19] The sum total of these memories forms the identity of cities and communities.

Sài Gòn, throughout its history, has also forged a unique identity and a memory-address book, preserving the collective memory of generations of inhabitants over the years.

And then, across the ocean and after the Fall of Sài Gòn, a liberal and open identity of Sài Gòn continued to be maintained among the old residents who fled the country and struggled to adapt to a new life after the upheaval.

If British migrants had New England, New Hampshire, New South Wales, New Jersey, and so on, or if the Chinese diaspora had Chinatowns springing up all over the world—places that evoked memories of their homeland—then the Vietnamese also had their own “Little Saigons” on their journey of displacement. 

Besides the two large Little Saigons in Orange County and San Jose, many other Vietnamese residential areas and enclaves are also called by this name, a cultural identity code for Vietnamese people living abroad. [20]

The old names in these new lands, while they cannot replace the memories of their homeland, have certainly helped to comfort and alleviate some of the longing for their hometown.

Sài Gòn—A Journey of Identity

Ngô Đình Diệm and the dethroning of Emperor Bảo Đại in October 1955, when the Republic of Vietnam was established following a referendum, became president. Sài Gòn was immediately chosen as the capital of the newly formed regime, officially named the Metropolitan Area of ​​Sài Gòn.

The reason this city was chosen as the capital by the Republic of Vietnam government was not only because it was the largest city in the South at the time but also because of its historical significance: Sài Gòn was the oldest and most bustling city in the entire southern region, from the feudal era to the colonial period.

Over the course of its history, full of twists and turns, Sài Gòn gradually nurtured and shaped a diverse, complex, yet unique identity.

In December 1998, the People’s Committee of Hồ Chí Minh City organized a celebration of “300 years of Saigon,” with a series of cultural, artistic, and scientific activities, as well as accompanying welfare and social security programs. [21]

It can be seen that, although the city had entered its 22nd year since being named after the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam, people still chose the name “Sài Gòn” to commemorate an important historical milestone of the locality.

This 300-year period is calculated from the milestone of 1698, when Governor Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh established the area of ​​present-day Sài Gòn, which at that time was called Sài-côn, “with the Tân-bình district and building the Phiên-trấn palace” [22], making this place the first administrative unit established and governed by the Vietnamese.

Before Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, the land of Sài Gòn belonged to the territories of Funan, Chenla, and, lastly, the Khmer Empire. According to some studies, the Khmer named this place “Prey Nokor,” meaning “forest city.” [23]

Once a fairly developed city of the Khmer Empire in the 11th-12th centuries, from the 1620s onwards, Sài Gòn gradually came under the strong influence of the Vietnamese culture and became a settlement area for Vietnamese people following the southward migration of refugees during the Trịnh-Nguyễn conflict (1627–1777). [24] 

After Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh established the first Vietnamese government, this land quickly urbanized, soon replacing Hội An as the leading international trading port in the entire Đằng Trong region. [25]

To achieve that development, we must also credit the Chinese migrants who came to this land very early. In 1679, Lord Nguyễn allowed a group of 3,000 soldiers and civilians of two former Ming Dynasty generals, Trần Thượng Xuyên and Dương Ngạn Địch, to seek refuge in Đằng Trong. They were given the land of Đông Phố, which later became Gia Định. Here, the Chinese group cleared land, established towns, and developed a bustling commercial area. [26]

It is precisely because of such a complex origin, with the convergence of three cultures—Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese—that the name “Sài Gòn” has become a subject of debate for many years in academic circles. [27]

Huỳnh Tịnh Của believes that Sài Gòn means “cotton firewood,” a combination of the word “sài” in Sino-Vietnamese, meaning “firewood,” and “gòn,” meaning “cotton” in Vietnamese. Huỳnh Tịnh Của was a pioneering Vietnamese scholar, writer, translator, and lexicographer known for helping develop modern written Vietnamese in quốc ngữ, the Latin-based Vietnamese writing system.

According to Trương Vĩnh Ký, this name originated from the way the Vietnamese mispronounced the old Khmer name of the land, “Prey Nokor.” Trương Vĩnh Ký, also known as Pétrus Ký, was a 19th-century Vietnamese scholar, linguist, journalist, and translator who helped popularize quốc ngữ while remaining controversial for his ties to the French colonial administration.

Scholars Trương and Lê Văn Phát later adopted Huỳnh Tịnh Của’s view, suggesting that the reason for this mispronunciation was because the area around Sài Gòn used to have many kapok trees—which in Vietnamese is “cây gòn.”

Scholar Vương Hồng Sển disagreed with this hypothesis, arguing that Sài Gòn is a Vietnamese mispronunciation of the Cantonese word “Đề Ngạn,” the name the Chinese used for the Chợ Lớn area. 

Conversely, according to the French researcher Louis Malleret, the name Sài Gòn originates from “Tây Cống,” the name the Chinese gave the city, meaning a land offered as tribute to the West.

More than a century and a half has passed since these initial explanations, and the search for the origin of the name “Sài Gòn” continues.

Another noteworthy point is that Sài Gòn did not only become the capital in 1955. Nearly two centuries earlier, this place was chosen as the capital of the Nguyễn dynasty in 1790, after Nguyễn Phước Ánh built the Bát Quái Citadel here and established Gia Định as the capital.

From then on, Sài Gòn-Gia Định was always a key economic and political center of the south. Even in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as researcher Nguyễn Đình Đầu noted, Sài Gòn became the largest “metropolis” in the country. [28]

The above events not only show the level of economic development and political status of Sài Gòn in the late medieval period but also indirectly show that this place, several hundred years ago, had a considerable cultural stature, capable of forming the roots for the cultural vitality of later periods.

After more than a century and a half of development within the Vietnamese feudal cultural context and blended with the culture of the Chinese immigrants who settled in the Chợ Lớn area, Sài Gòn began a period of strong French cultural assimilation following the fall of the Gia Định Citadel in February 1859.

After occupying the area, the French planned and built Sài Gòn according to the model of a modern Western city. The French established Sài Gòn as a city and oriented its development towards becoming an economic and political center of French Cochinchina, especially after the Treaty of Giáp Tuất in 1874, when they officially acquired the six southern provinces. [29]

After gaining full protection over the entire territory of Việt Nam following the Patenôtre Treaty in 1884, the French divided the country into three regions, with three different governing regimes. Cochinchina was a colony, under the total control of the French, while Tonkin and Annam were two regions under French protection (the Nguyễn dynasty was still allowed to operate in An Nam). [30]

Later, in 1887, the French government established the position of Governor-General of Indochina. Norodom Palace, formerly the Governor’s Palace of Cochinchina in Sài Gòn, was chosen as the Governor-General’s Palace. [31] Sài Gòn then became the political center of the entire French Indochina.

The city’s iconic buildings gradually sprang up following the colonial government’s exploration and exploitation, such as Bến Thành Market, the City Theater, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Botanical Garden, the City Hall (now the headquarters of the People’s Committee of Hồ Chí Minh City), Norodom Palace (now Independence Palace), etc. Central thoroughfares and rows of trees on both sides of the roads also continuously appeared, followed by rows of buildings creating the city’s landscape.

The development of infrastructure and the urban landscape progressed alongside the expansion of residential space, shaping the increasingly evolving face of Sài Gòn. The population of the city grew from only about 48,000 in 1862, when the French had just occupied the city, to 256,000 by 1931, and nearly 500,000 in 1943. [32] The urban area of ​​Sài Gòn was also amplified many times; from only about 2 km² in 1865, it expanded to 51 km² in 1931. [33]

After the Geneva Agreement in 1954, Sài Gòn welcomed a community of people, bringing with them a new cultural wave: people migrating from the North to the South. This migration caused the population of Sài Gòn to increase dramatically, reaching about 2,000,000 people, almost double that of 5 years earlier. [34]

After becoming the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, in addition to large aid from the United States, the economic policies of the Ngô Đình Diệm government proved effective, causing the South Vietnamese economy to develop rapidly, with an average growth rate of 7.2% per year during the period 1957-1960. [35] 

Also during this period, studies show that more than half of South Vietnam’s factories and enterprises were located in Sài Gòn, making the capital city a highly concentrated economic hub of the country at that time. [36]

With the service sector accounting for 64% of the economy in 1972, South Vietnam, despite being heavily impacted by the war, was a dynamic and modern economy. The private sector accounted for a high proportion, reaching 85% in 1960 and decreasing to 70.1% in 1970, clearly reflecting the nature of a market economy. [37] Sài Gòn, obviously, occupies a central position in this service-oriented market economy.

The US military’s participation in the war led to an increasingly large influx of Americans into Sài Gòn life, gradually spreading American culture there. Sài Gòn’s culture received a new element, creating a blend of the new urban European and American lifestyle amidst war and chaos. 

Sài Gòn’s identity is not something fixed or original, but rather a synthesis, a combination of diverse elements and materials. This multifaceted nature of Saigon’s identity has been shaped by the city’s history and many changes. 

50 Years – Remaining but Not Lost 

Not long after the fall of Sài Gòn, the residents of the city—and South Vietnam in general—faced a fierce existential crisis. Some had to flee their homeland, while others suffered exile in their own motherland. 

In May 1975, the first evacuation operation, supported by the US Navy, recorded more than 70,000 refugees being taken away by US and South Vietnamese Army ships. [38] However, just one month later, the US government reported that there were more than 131,000 Vietnamese in US-controlled refugee camps. [39] 

Within the country, just two months after taking over the south, an AP article reported that the Communist government had sent more than 309,000 people to re-education camps. [40] These included former soldiers, police, and civil servants of the Republic of Vietnam.

Also in July 1975, an article in the American newspaper Newsday reported that the Vietnamese government had planned to evacuate 125,000 people from Sài Gòn to new economic zones in Bình Phước. [41]

The bitter and poignant feelings of exiles fueled a brilliant landscape of literature and music. Numerous works of art emerged from the nostalgic memories of people whom history expelled from their familiar homes.

The name Sài Gòn, though erased from identity cards, remained intact in its cultural significance, still mentioned in poetry by both domestic and overseas authors.

For example, consider the image of the city that appeared in Du Tử Lê’s poetry in 1978, when he was living in Southern California:

“Remembering you, the needle and thread of love

The gentle afternoon in the classroom

Remembering the sad rain all over Thị Nghè

The sunny afternoon of Trương Minh Giản, Tự Do.”

Or like the lyrics that Nguyệt Ánh wrote after settling in Virginia, USA in 1980:

“Is the Sài Gòn sun still warm, my dear?

Two rows of trees casting shadows on the doorstep

The morning sun, the blue color of your eyes

The afternoon breeze makes your hair fly….”

Additionally, until the 2000s, the name Sài Gòn still appeared in the poems of domestic poets, such as the poems Sài Gòn, Sài Gòn in Spring by Nguyễn Thụy Kha and Sài Gòn Rain, Hà Nội Rain by Hoàng Anh Tuấn, etc. [42][43][44]

Author Tịch Dạ, in an article published in Luật Khoa in 2025, stated that overseas literature and art have the value of soothing the pain of the times and giving people more vitality after the upheaval, while helping to preserve and spread Vietnamese culture and language throughout the continents, as well as helping to preserve the realistic picture of the past and the historical truth for the future. [45]

These things are probably also true for works about Sài Gòn after 1975. Through nostalgic literary works, urban memories of Sài Gòn remain intact, along with the historical reality that those urban residents experienced and pondered. 

Conversely, through the creation and dissemination of these literary works, the name Sài Gòn and its local cultural identity continue to be deeply ingrained in the minds of many people, whether they have ever lived in Sài Gòn or not.

The death of a place’s name, perhaps, only occurs when the memory of that place completely disappears.

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Hải Sa wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 28, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.