Van (Dutch)

"Van (Dutch surname)" redirects here. For other people named Van, see Van (given name) and Van (surname).
van
Derivatives: van der, Vanderbilt
Place of originDutch
Owing to its Flemish origin, the surname of Ludwig van Beethoven contains the prefix van, rather than (as might be expected of someone born in Bonn) its German equivalent von.

van (Dutch pronunciation: [vɑn] ⓘ) is a very common prefix in Dutch language surnames, where it is known as a tussenvoegsel. In those cases it nearly always refers to a certain, often quite distant, ancestor's place of origin or residence; for example, Ludwig van Beethoven "from Beethoven" (maybe Bettenhoven)[1][better source needed] and Rembrandt van Rijn "from the Rhine".[note 1] Van is also a preposition in the Dutch and Afrikaans languages, meaning "of" or "from" depending on the context (similar to da, de, di and do in the Romance languages).[2]

In surnames, it can appear by itself or in combination with an article (compare French de la, du, de l'). The most common cases of this are van de, van der and van den, where the articles are all current or archaic forms of the article de "the". Less common are van het and van 't, which use the similar but grammatically neuter article het. The contraction ver-, based on van der, is also common and can be written as a single word with the rest of the surname; an example being Johannes Vermeer (van der meer "of the lake").

  1. ^ "Did you know that Ludwig van Beethoven's roots lie in Mechelen?". 2017-07-14.
  2. ^ Brians, Paul (25 May 2016). "multipart names". Washington State University. Retrieved 11 June 2018.


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