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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Any Jewelry, post: 484115, member: 2844&quot;]Just a little note, in Belgian and Dutch names the &#039;van&#039; or &#039;van de&#039; or &#039;van der&#039; are usually written separate from the rest of the name, although there are exceptions. </p><p>So these Belgian painters were called Van Neste and Van Acker.</p><p>In the Netherlands the &#039;van&#039; is often written with a lower case v. That is also seen in some Belgian names.</p><p><br /></p><p>When people from the Low Countries came to the US, the names were registered as the migration officials heard them. So some are still called Van (van) Dyke, others became Vanderbilt (van der Bilt).</p><p>Van means of or from. It simply refers to a place the family originally came from. Vanderbilt came from the village of de Bilt in the centre of the Netherlands, the Van Dykes lived near a dyke.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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