The Most Famous People from Vietnam
Top 100 of 128 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
Tô Lâm edges a general, two monks and a president on Vietnam's list
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
The Communist Party's general secretary leads the August 2026 origin list for Vietnam by two tenths of a point over Võ Nguyên Giáp, on a table where dead names hold most of the top ten.
Vietnam's origin list for August 2026 is led by a living man by the narrowest of margins. Tô Lâm, general secretary of the Communist Party and the country's leader since 2024, scores 9.8. Võ Nguyên Giáp, the general who commanded the victories at Dien Bien Phu and in the American war and who died in 2013, scores 9.6. Behind them the dead take over: Thích Nhất Hạnh, the monk and activist, third at 8.9; Thích Quảng Đức, the monk whose self-immolation in 1963 was photographed around the world, fourth at 8; and Ngô Đình Diệm, the first president of South Vietnam, fifth at 7.8.
The composition confirms the tilt. The page ranks the top hundred of 128 measured, and only 48 of those hundred are living. Nine of the top fifteen have died, among them Le Duc Tho, the diplomat who negotiated the Paris accords, ninth; Nguyễn Phú Trọng, general secretary from 2011 to 2024, tenth; Duong Van Minh, the last president of South Vietnam, twelfth; Le Duan, fourteenth; and Gia Long, founder of the Nguyễn dynasty, fifteenth. The twentieth century's war and its aftermath still hold most of the world's attention to Vietnam.
The living names in between are largely diaspora. Tsui Hark, the Hong Kong director, is sixth at 7.4. Phan Thị Kim Phúc, the child in the 1972 napalm photograph and now a Canadian activist, is seventh. Hong Chau, the American actress, is eighth.
Only two living names in the top fifteen work from Vietnam itself: Sơn Tùng M-TP, the singer and producer, eleventh at 5.9, and Phạm Nhật Vượng, founder and chairman of Vingroup, thirteenth at 5.6.
About this list
This list ranks people from Vietnam by their overall worldwide fame rather than local attention, as assessed for August 2026: the top 100 of 128 names, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 48 of the 100 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
Tô Lâm is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind Tô Lâm come Võ Nguyên Giáp and Thích Nhất Hạnh.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About Vietnam
Vietnam is one of the countries and regions the journal ranks every month. Country lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared with its neighbours and against the world.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
Related searches: most famous people in Vietnam 2026, top celebrities in Vietnam August 2026, Vietnam fame ranking, most famous person in Vietnam.
"Tô Lâm, No. 1 on The Most Famous People from Vietnam", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org