Van (Dutch)
Van is a preposition in the Dutch language as well as in its daughter, the Afrikaans language, meaning 'of' or 'from'. It is also a common prefix in Dutch surnames - specifically, a "tussenvoegsel" — as in Vincent van Gogh or George Vancouver. 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' (the)) and less commonly van het or van 't (the neutral article 'het'). The German 'Von' is a cognate of Dutch 'van' but unlike the German 'von', the Dutch 'van' is not an indication of nobility. These prepositions usually refer to a (mostly geographic) place.
the preposition 'van' is the most widely used preposition in dutch surnames, but other prepositions are also used:
- te - meaning 'at' (or towards), (or ter and ten, being the old accusative forms) e.g. ter Beek (at the brook), or the old forms of te being thoe or thor in thoe Sloten and Thorbecke (at Sloten and at the brook)
- aan - meaning 'at' e.g. aan de Stegge In which Stegge is the name of a river.
- op - meaning on (also in combination op de, op den, op 't, op der) e.g. op den Beek (on the Brook)
Collation and capitalisation of names in the Dutch language is different in the Netherlands and Belgium.
- In the Netherlands, 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, orWaals, 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 thing 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.
- In Belgium Eric Van Rompuy is filed under 'V'.[1] The 'V' is always capitalized. The same usage holds for Afrikaans.
In some anglicised versions of Dutch names (e.g. Dick Van Dyke, Martin Van Buren) or in the case where the word is not of Dutch origin, as in Vietnamese names (e.g. 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.
The prefixes are in some names (usually southern Dutch, e.g. Belgian names) concatenated to each other or to the name proper, as in Vandervelde.
In the United States some English surnames were later given the preposition Van, such as in the case of Van Owen or Van Blake.