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Both in dutch (van) or french (de, d') in small caps in a name, indicate nobility.
by brokencipher 3y ago
Both in dutch (van) or french (de, d') in small caps in a name, indicate nobility.
- jorams 3y agoWikipedia says that's not true: > The German "von" is a linguistic cognate of the Dutch "van", however, unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not indicative of the person's nobility or royalty. Van has a history of being used by commoners and nobility alike to simply signify ancestral relation to a particular place, (e.g. Willem van Oranje "William of [the] Orange [family]"; Jan van Ghent "John [who hails] from Ghent").