Is dad “ba” or “bố” in Vietnamese?

In southern Vietnam, dad is ba. In the north it’s bố, so “my parents” is ba mẹ in Saigon and bố mẹ in Hanoi, and many southern families say ba má. Both words are understood everywhere, and cha is the older, more formal word in both regions. Ba is also the number three, with the same spelling and tone, so context tells you which one you heard.

In this FAPTV sketch a young man and an older stranger compare marks on their arms and slowly realise they are son and father. Không lẽ ông là cha ruột của con hả Thái? “Could you be my real father?” uses cha ruột, the usual phrase for a biological father in either region. Then come the mirrored lines: Con lạc ba lúc mười tuổi. “I lost my dad when I was ten.” / Ba lạc con lúc con mười tuổi. “I lost my son when he was ten.” The second line shows the other job of ba: a southern father calls himself ba when he talks to his child, the way a northern one says bố, and the child calls himself con.