Van (Dutch)

Van is a preposition in the Dutch and Afrikaans languages, meaning "of" or "from". It is also a common prefix in Dutch surnames (being known as a tussenvoegsel), as in Vincent van Gogh or Marco van Basten. It can appear by itself or in combination with another prefix, such as van de, van der and van den (current and archaic forms of the article de, meaning "the") and less commonly van het or van 't (the neutral article het). The German "von" is a cognate of Dutch "van", though unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not an indication of nobility or royalty. These prepositions usually refer to a geographic place.

Other prepositions

The preposition "van" is the most widely used preposition in Dutch surnames, but others are also used:

• te — meaning "at" (or/of towards), (or ter and ten, being the old dative forms), e.g., ter Beek (of the stream), or the old forms of te being thoe or thor in thoe Sloten and Thorbecke (at Sloten and at the brook)
• aan — meaning "at" or "aside", e.g., aan de Stegge which means aside the road.
• op — meaning on (also in combination op de, op den, op 't, op der), e.g., op den Beek (on the brook)

Conventions

Collation and capitalisation

Collation and capitalisation of names in the Dutch language differs between the Netherlands and Belgium:

• In the Netherlands, Suriname and other Dutch speaking countries, names starting with "van" are filed under the initial letter of the following name proper, so van der Waals is filed under "W", thus;   Waals, van der, Johannes, or Waals, Johannes van der. The "v" is written in lower case, except if the first name or initials are omitted, in which case it is capitalised, as in "de schilder Van Gogh" ("the painter Van Gogh") or "de heer Van Teylingen" ("Mister Van Teylingen"). The same holds for "Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff". (Notice the space between van and 't.) There are a number of other tussenvoegsels for which similar rules apply: Jan de Hondt, Anna in 't Veld, Karel 't Lam etc. The same filing usage holds for Afrikaans.

• Except in Belgium, where Eric Van Rompuy is filed under "V". The "V" is most often capitalized.

In some anglicised versions of Dutch names (e.g. Dick Van Dyke, George Vancouver, Martin Van Buren), or in the case where the word is not of Dutch origin, as in Vietnamese names (Duong Van Minh, Nguyen Van Thieu), it is always capitalised. In terms like van der Waals radius (Dutch: vanderwaalsstraal) the "v" is not capitalised, unless it is the first word of the sentence.

Concatenation

In some names (usually Flemish belgian names) the prefixes are concatenated to each other or to the name proper, as in Vandervelde or Vandermonde.

Other uses

In the United States some English surnames were later given the preposition Van, such as in the case of Van Owen or Van Blake.

See also

• von