[Philip]

Good observation, Josh. In trying to classify Vietnamese hilt weapons, I come across the same thing. Arms historians who speak Vietnamese have pointed out that the names follow the blade types. In fact, they couldn't tell me any specific terms applicable to "guom" (sabers with narrow blades similar to the Chinese willow-leaf type) with enclosed knucklebow hilts vs those with open hilts utilizing a discoid hand-guard. But the distinction between a "guom" and a "dao" (pronounced "yao" in southern speech, "zao" in northern) is clear -- the later has a broad blade usually with a clipped point and a gradual widening outward from the hilt.

Unfortunately these guys all have a modern education in the language whose official written form has been romanized for many generations now; the Chinese characters have fallen out of use. It's clear what character corresponds to "dao", but no one could tell me what the ideograph for "guom" is. "Kiem" (double edged straight sword) is obviously the equivalent of "jian" (or Cantonese "gim", Japanese "ken"). I once owned a ceremonial ivory-hilted guom with a dedicatory inscription engraved in Chinese on the grip, and despite the thing being obviously a saber, the character "jian" was used in it to refer to the weapon!

Despite this bit of confusion, the logic of Vietnamese terminology is pretty easy to follow. Not so with Korean, which seems less consistent and straightforward, but let's save that for another thread.