My name

In Vietnamese, my name is Tạ Hoàng Thắng in which "Tạ" refers to the last name, "Hoàng" is the middle name, and "Thắng" is my first name. 

Vietnamese people disagree about using our names in scientific papers; see details here. Therefore, I often use my name as "Hoang Thang Ta" or the short form of "Ta H.T.".

My ancestry last name was "Nguyen". Due to the Vietnam war and famine, my grandfather took the new name when adopted by a "Ta" family. Our family decided to change our last name to "Nguyen" for the next generation.