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Việt Nam (Vietnamese pronunciation: [vjə̀tnam]) was adopted as the official name of the country by Emperor Gia Long in 1804. It is a variation of "Nam Việt" (南越, Southern Việt), a name used in ancient times. In 1839, Emperor Minh Mạng renamed the country Đại Nam ("Great South"). In 1945, the nation's official name was changed back to "Vietnam". The name is also sometimes rendered as "Viet Nam" in English.^[13] Also of note is the fact that the Chinese characters for Vietnam's name (pronounced yue4 nan2, the numbers representing standard Mandarin tones) can, in addition to "Southern Viet", be translated as "Beyond the South", a reference to the country's location beyond the southernmost borders of both traditional and modern