given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa ...
and the main part of their
family name
In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community.
Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...
Greg de Vries
Gregory A. de Vries (born January 4, 1973) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He played over 800 games with six teams in the National Hockey League (NHL). De Vries won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2000–01 se ...
, meaning "the". A forms an integral part of one's surname; it distinguishes it from similar Dutch surnames, e.g. Jan
de Boer __NOTOC__
De Boer is a Dutch occupational surname meaning "the farmer". Variant spellings include ''den Boer'' and ''DeBoer''. Notable people with this surname include: De Boer / DeBoer A
* Ad de Boer (born 1946), Dutch politician and journalist
*Al ...
de Kok
De Kok or DeKok is a Dutch occupational surname. It may refer to:
*Frans de Kok (1924–2011), Dutch conductor
* Frits de Kok (1882–1940), Dutch businessman, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell
*Ingrid de Kok (born 1951), South African author
* Irene de K ...
originate from the time that Dutch surnames officially came into use. Many of the names are place names, which refer to cities, e.g. Van Coevorden ("from Coevorden"), or geographical locations, e.g.
Van de Velde Van de Velde, Vande Velde, or Vandevelde is a Dutch toponymic surname meaning "from the field". Van de Velde is the 32nd most common name in Belgium, with 8,903 people in 2008, while in 2007 there were 3,319 people named "Van de Velde" in The Neth ...
("of the fields"). The list of mentioned below includes approximate translations, some of which have maintained their earlier meaning more than others.
Usage
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, these are not included when sorting alphabetically. For example, in the Dutch telephone directory, " De Vries" is listed under "V", instead of "D". Therefore, in Dutch databases are recorded as a separate data field so as to simplify the process of locating it. Sorting by would result in many names being listed under "D" and "V".
In
Dutch grammar
This article outlines the grammar of the Dutch language, which shares strong similarities with German grammar and also, to a lesser degree, with English grammar.
Preliminary considerations
Vowel length is indicated in Dutch spelling using a comb ...
, the in a surname is written with a capital letter only when it starts a sentence or is not preceded by a first name or initial. So referring to a professor named Peter whose surname is "de Vries", one writes "professor De Vries", but when preceded by a first name or initial it is written using lower case, such as in "Peter de Vries" or "P. de Vries".
Belgium
In
Belgian Dutch
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
, or Flemish, surnames are collated with the full surname including . " De Smet" comes before "DeSmet" in a telephone book. Although French family names commonly also use , those are frequently contracted into the surname, e.g. turning Le Roc into Leroc, or La Roche into
Laroche La Roche, LaRoche or Laroche may refer to:
People
*LaRoche (surname), includes Laroche
* Sophie von La Roche, a German writer
* Marquis de La Roche-Helgomarche or Marquis de La Roche-Mesgouez, title held by Troilus de Mesqouez and linked to La Roc ...
, and thus explaining the collation preference.
In contrast to
Dutch orthography
Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation and educational establishments.
Legal basis
In the Netherlands, the official spelling is regulated ...
, Belgian always keep their original orthography, e.g. , , or .
Other areas
In areas outside the Low Countries, are typically capitalized and used in sorting (as in Belgium). In areas where multi-word surnames are unfamiliar, to avoid confusion the are often
concatenate
In formal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character strings end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of "snow" and "ball" is "snowball". In certain formalisations of concatenat ...
d to the name proper to form single-word surnames, as in "
Vandervelde Van der Velde, Vandervelde or Vander Velde is a Dutch-language toponymic surname meaning "from the field".VanHerck", or even " VanDerBeek". Dutch family names in South Africa, e.g. Van der Merwe, follow Dutch rules.
Examples
Common are as follows:
* – "at"
* – "near"
* – "the"; also French and Spanish for "of"
* – "of the"
* – "the"
* – "in"
* – "under", "below"
* – "on", "at"
* – "over", "beyond"
* – "of the", "from" (
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...