Talk:Dutch name

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 Dutch name was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: October 30, 2006
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Contents

[edit] Image with ugly font removed

Please do not reinstate the image which contains only a text table. It forces a font upon the user, and even data that isn't going to change very much should be editable for layout and similar matters. Rex, you are acting unwiki-like. Please stop that. – gpvos (talk)

I merely reinstated the image once, with the summary "esthetics do matter.Also, this information is unlikely to change in the next 50 years" qne then when you put it back again I did not touch it anymore. Would you please explain what's so "unwiki-like" about that?!
 Rex  09:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I apologise, and also for the times I was unpolite to you earlier. You are listening to arguments in this case, so I retract my statement above. Some things that are utterly obvious to me aren't obvious to others; I know this, but it's hard to not get irritated sometimes. I have now browsed around a bit in Category:Wikipedia image help and related places, and there doesn't seem to be a guideline on this; maybe I should add one. – gpvos (talk) 13:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You could try that yeah, but in that case you should prepare for a lot more "trouble". Normally before you can add a tiny little guideline you'll need to fight your way through wikiburucracy ;-)  Rex  13:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorting prefixes

Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Ordering_names_in_a_category seems to contradict this article. It suggests sorting Van Basten under V and not B.

I'm asking, because there's an argument going on about sorting names of Theo de Raadt and Guido van Rossum, famed programmers.

See Template talk:FOSS celeb and Talk:Theo de Raadt.

Any professional help appreciated. --Amir E. Aharoni 08:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Well thanks goodness I do not have a name with a prefix, as Dutch names in English directories (e.g. reference lists of scientific papers) tend to be ordered on the full name including all prefixes (Van Rijn would be ordered under 'V'). This can easily be confusing if Dutch people appear in both Dutch and English directories. There is nothing to it, it is just how it is: In Dutch directories ignore prefix, in English use it. Very useful knowledge for English tourists, when going through a Dutch phonebook looking for a mr Van der Putten look under P (as both Van and der are prefixes)...... (Added something like that to article text).Arnoutf 21:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Huge misunderstanding: You are here on the talk page of a genuine article, on the subject of how surnames may be handled by Dutch people. Just like an article on so-called French fries explains how Belgians get their reputation on their national dish. This is not some Wikipedia style guide for ordering names. The French fries article is not a directive for Wikipedian cooking either. The article has nothing to say – and it does not say – how one should handle Dutch names on the English Wikipedia. Besides the guide line mentioned on the top line of this here section, for a more in-depth discussion on sorting names of people, see several sections (Alphabetical sort till (for now) finally Analphabetism) in Template Talk:FOSS celeb. — SomeHuman 24 Aug 2006 18:53 (UTC)
Dutch names are sorted the same way as other western names.
First, find the boundary between a) either the last given name, or the last prefix of the family name and b) the family name.
Then swap the two parts, insert a comma and sort alphabetically. The family names and given names are sorted separately.
So "Rembrandt van Rijn" becomes "Rijn, Rembrandt van" before sorting.
This is not unique to Dutch names. This procedure is used in other countries as well. Note also that the Dutch often use this procedure with foreign names containing prefixes as well. "Hercule de la Croix" thus sorts as "Croix, Hercule de la" and "George of Canterbury" becomes "Canterbury, George of".
One caveat: sometimes prefixes are molten into the name and not split of before sorting. This is quite rare, and always reflected in the spelling. Sometimes both variants exist, e.g. "van der Veen" versus "Vanderveen" and "de la Croix" verses "Delacroix". Shinobu 23:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
User:Gerbrant aka Shinobu's interpretation of the family name is particularly Dutch. In for instance German, Flemish and French names, there are often blanks between parts of the family name, as in Dutch. What I thus referred to as prefixes are however, always as much part of the family name as anything that follows and cannot be split off.
Only Dutch people might come up with "Croix, Hercule de la"; in French lists, it will be "de la Croix, Hercule". I do not know a family name "of Canterbury" and assume this to be a title, which might be inherited but not become widespread over a multitude of branches during following generations. In fact, that's what the article is all about: Dutch have a peculiar way of sorting names. My argument is, that the existence of an article about this Dutch habit, is not an authorisation to breach standards set by Wikipedia style guides on sorting names, Dutch or not.
On the occasional usage of 'Dutch' style sorting in other countries, in particular in Belgium, and in fact even demonstrating its not so overly prevalent usage in the Netherlands, please follow the link to the talk page in my above comment. — SomeHuman 26 Aug 2006 02:33 (UTC)
@not so overly prevalent usage in the Netherlands: surely you're joking. The sort order described is the only sort order in wide use in the Netherlands. I'm not really into the discussion on how Dutch names should be sorted on Wikipedia, you can fight that out amongs yourselves. Shinobu 20:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
There's no fight any more, I guess. If you follow the link as I suggested, and read how that search was done, the fact remains that only 50% of the lists written in Dutch language on the .nl domain of the Netherlands and handling mainly Dutch surnames sorted the 'Dutch' way. I assume the obvious advantages of that method are not present for electronically sorted lists, and thus manual filing systems and handwritten address/phone books would still give a very different ratio. But for how long, or... a Dutch tradition endangered by globalisation? — SomeHuman 26 Aug 2006 21:46 (UTC)
Probably not. Paper lists become totally unusable if prefixes are not split off, and as software becomes increasingly easy to use and versatile, the number of wrongly sorted electronic lists will decrease over time. Unless the lists are not meant to be flipped through, possibly. E.g. a database that is intended to be queried will probably be keyed, possibly on all substrings. Over and out. Shinobu 00:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
As a Dutchman, I believe I can say that the Dutch way of sorting surnames is very much alive and regarded as standard in the Netherlands, but not so in Belgium, where prefixes such as "Van der" are usually taken as a fixed part of the name. The article should make this clear. Rp (talk) 00:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Achternaam

Achternaam doesn't literally mean "aftername"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Äpple (talk • contribs)

Not literally, because that would be "nanaam". Achternaam would be "behindname" literally.
Rex 14:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Surname is the word. Rp (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA is failed

As of 30 October 2006, per WP:WIAGA, I made a speedy failing of this article for GA, because of the following reasons:

  1. Lead section is not enough, per WP:LS.
  2. There is no reference in this article. The list in the References section is basically External Links, not citations.

Whenever the above matters are resolved, you can renominate this article again. If you feel disagree with this review, then you can submit this article for re-review. — Indon (reply) — 15:38, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I never understand how to add a query or "new" item... I looked up this article on Dutch and Flemish surnames because I have observed among my Flemish friends a tendancy to use two surnames; to combine the surnames of the father and mother. As I myself live in Spain; I hypothesized that this tendancy might have arisen during the period in which the "low countries" were Spanish possessions. I am sorry to see that the use of the two surnames is barely touched upon and that the possible relation between it and the "Spanish period" of Low Countries history is not addressed; even if only to be discounted as a fallacy. I'll look back in the future and see if anyone has noticed this query, and/or replied to it. Sorry. 81.43.78.61 23:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Catanea

Are you sure you aren' t confusing ' tussenvoegsels' with surnames? For exmaple in [...] Vander Berg, " Vander" is not a surname. Rex 08:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prevalence of Latin versions

I was wondering, what's with the prevalences of Latin versions of names like, Paulus, Johannes, Cornelius? Arthurian Legend 00:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Answer: rare.
  • As first names: Christian Latin surnames became popular around 1400 and have been popular ever since, but (like in English) mostly in shortened forms. E.g. Paulus, Petrus and Cornelius are extremely rare; Paul, Peter, Cor and Kees are extremely common.
  • As last names: I don't know any Dutch with Latin first names as a last name. In general first names are rarely used as last names or vice versa. However around 1700 it was fairly popular to Latinise existing surnames, and some of those remain, e.g. Jansonius, Samplonius, Faber. Rp (talk) 00:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Van" names after occupation???

The article states that Van names may refer to something other than a geographical indication, citing Van Bruggen as an example. I strongly doubt that (e.g. Bruggen is a town near Roermond, in an area where *every* place name has a corresponding Van surname associated with it) so I'd like to see some confirmation. Rp (talk) 00:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)