In 1976, after the end of the war and the reunification of Vietnam, Saigon was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City. On administrative documents, maps, stamps, and government forms, the new name has existed for almost half a century.
Yet in daily speech, in memory, in poetry, in music, in business names, and in Vietnamese communities around the world, the name Saigon continues to live.
This raises an interesting question: why does a name that was officially replaced nearly fifty years ago still refuse to disappear?
To me, the answer lies in three dimensions: language, culture, and history.
A Name with Linguistic Power
From a linguistic point of view, “Saigon” has a natural advantage. It is short, compact, easy to say, easy to remember, and easy to use in everyday conversation.
By contrast, “Ho Chi Minh City” is long. It works well in administrative documents, official speeches, maps, and forms. But in natural speech, people tend to choose the shorter and more familiar name.
The name Saigon also lives in everyday expressions: “going into Saigon,” “going up to Saigon,” “Saigon rain,” “Saigon people.” It even lives in the familiar street vendor calls once heard across the city: “Saigon baguette, full inside, fragrant with butter, Saigon baguette, one thousand dong a loaf...”
These phrases need no administrative approval. They are passed from mouth to mouth, from the South all the way to the North, proving that the name Saigon has entered deeply into the living language of the Vietnamese people.
Very few people, in casual daily conversation, would naturally say: “I am going to Ho Chi Minh City.”
Language has its own rules. People tend to choose words that are short, easy to pronounce, and emotionally familiar. This is especially true in the South of Vietnam, where everyday speech often favors shorter, lighter, and more direct expressions.
For that reason, “Saigon” continues to be used, not necessarily as a political statement, but because it is natural, convenient, and intimate.
Most major city names in Vietnam are also short: Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Can Tho, My Tho, Bien Hoa, Vung Tau, Hai Phong. In that flow of Vietnamese place names, “Saigon” feels natural. It belongs to the rhythm of the language.
A Name That Lives in Culture
A city name is not only a label on a map. It is also a sound carried by memory.
“Saigon” appears in music, poetry, literature, and in the intimate language of generations. People sing:
Saigon is beautiful, Saigon, oh Saigon!
People remember the famous poetic line:
The Saigon sun suddenly feels cool as you walk beneath it...
Such songs and poems do not merely name a city. They evoke an entire cultural atmosphere: sunlight, sudden rain, tree-lined streets, cafés, schools, street sounds, afternoon shadows, and old memories of love and youth.
In art, not every name can enter the heart. A name may be printed on official papers, but to become poetry it must have music. “Saigon” has that music. It is soft, brief, and resonant. It can live inside a poem, a song, a love letter, or a simple call from one person to another.
“Ho Chi Minh City,” on the other hand, has a more administrative character. It is the name of documents, addresses, forms, and official usage. It is much harder for it to become a natural poetic image.
It is no accident that so many brands still use the name Saigon: Bia Saigon, Saigon Co.op, Saigontourist, Saigon Newport, Saigon Times, Saigon Centre. Businesses choose names with strong recognition, and “Saigon” still carries enormous cultural and commercial value.
The same is true overseas. Wherever there are large Vietnamese communities, people speak of Little Saigon. No one calls these communities “Little Ho Chi Minh City.” This shows that “Saigon” is not only the name of a city. It is also the name of a shared memory.
A Name Rooted in History
Saigon is also attached to a historical title that many Vietnamese people still recognize with pride: the Pearl of the Far East.
Whatever one’s political perspective may be, it is difficult to deny that Saigon was once one of the most distinctive cities in Southeast Asia. The French built Saigon with the ambition of creating a smaller Paris in the East. The city had Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Central Post Office, Norodom Palace, the zoo, museums, elegant schools, straight boulevards, rows of trees, and cool public parks.
Saigon was not merely an administrative center. It was a city with style: open, dynamic, graceful, and shaped by a mixture of East and West, tradition and modernity.
When people call Saigon “the Pearl of the Far East,” they are not speaking about an administrative decision. They are speaking about a historical image, a period of urban development, and an Eastern dream carrying the shadow of Paris.
For that reason, changing the name of Saigon was not simply a matter of changing the name of a city. It also meant replacing a historical symbol with a political name.
Renaming Cities in History
Renaming cities is not rare. Around the world, many cities have been renamed for political reasons. St. Petersburg became Leningrad, and later returned to St. Petersburg. Stalingrad later became Volgograd.
In Vietnam, Thang Long was also renamed Hanoi under the Nguyen dynasty. That decision also carried a political dimension, since the name Thang Long was associated with earlier dynasties such as the Ly, Tran, and Le. Yet the name Hanoi was eventually widely accepted. Today, Thang Long lives on as a historical and cultural symbol, while Hanoi lives as the modern administrative and cultural name. The two names do not cancel each other out.
The case of Saigon is different. Nearly fifty years later, the new administrative name has still not fully replaced the old one in natural life. On paper, the city is Ho Chi Minh City. But in speech, in brands, in music, in memory, and in Vietnamese communities abroad, the name Saigon continues to appear.
This reveals a simple truth: a name does not live by authority alone. It lives by human acceptance.
The Administrative Name and the Name in People’s Hearts
Some names are created by resolutions. Other names are preserved by memory.
Ho Chi Minh City is the administrative name. Saigon is the cultural name, the historical name, and the name of everyday life.
For many people who were born and raised in the South before 1975, Saigon is childhood, school, streets, noon sunlight, sudden rain, and a world that has disappeared but never truly gone away.
Even many people born after 1975 still say “Saigon” in daily life. For them, it is not necessarily a political declaration. It is simply the most natural name.
Language is sometimes more honest than slogans. People call a place by the name that feels close to them. And when millions of people continue to say “Saigon,” that fact itself becomes cultural evidence.
One Day
History is always moving. An administrative decision can change the name of a city in a single day. But changing human memory requires much more.
Nearly fifty years have passed. The name Saigon has not disappeared. It remains present in songs, poems, business names, street signs, daily speech, and in the hearts of many generations of Vietnamese people.
Saigon lives not only in its streets, its songs, and its famous brands. It also lives in the gentle melody of the Southern Vietnamese voice, in the softly spoken "dạ," in the affectionate way people address one another as anh, chị, cô, or chú, and in the quiet elegance of an urban culture that is at once courteous, warm, and deeply human.
Perhaps one day, the city will officially regain the name Saigon. If that happens, it will not be the creation of a new name. It will simply be the return of a name that never truly disappeared.
Saigon is still Saigon.
