A tussenvoegsel (ˈtʏsənˌvuxsəl) in Dutch linguistics

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 is a word that is positioned between a person's first

Given name

A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...

 and last name

Last Name

"Last Name" is the title of a song composed by country singer Carrie Underwood, Hillary Lindsey and Luke Laird. It is the third single from Underwood's second studio album, Carnival Ride. It was released in the United States on April 7, 2008, by which point the song had already charted...

. The most common tussenvoegsels are "van" (as in Dick van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke

Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...

) meaning "from" and "de" (as in Greg de Vries

Greg de Vries

Greg de Vries is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He played over 800 games with six teams in the National Hockey League...

), meaning "the". Most Dutch surnames include no tussenvoegsel (as in Mark Rutte

Mark Rutte

Mark Rutte is a Dutch politician who has been Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 14 October 2010, as well as Minister of General Affairs in the Rutte cabinet...

 and Wim Kok

Wim Kok

Willem "Wim" Kok ; born September 29, 1938) is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party . He served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from August 22, 1994 until July 22, 2002....

).

The use of tussenvoegsels differs between the Netherlands and Belgium.

In the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, these tussenvoegsels are not included when sorting alphabetically. For example, in the Dutch telephone directory

Telephone directory

A telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory...

 the surname "De Vries" is listed under "V", not "D". Therefore in Dutch database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s tussenvoegsels are recorded separately. This often simplifies finding a Dutch surname in a Dutch database, because including the tussenvoegsel would result in many surnames being listed under "D" and "V".

According to Dutch language rules in the Netherlands, the tussenvoegsel in a surname is written with a capital letter only when it is not preceded by a first name or initial. So referring to a Peter whose surname is "De Vries" we write "meneer De Vries" (Mr. De Vries), but "Peter de Vries" and "P. de Vries".

In Belgium

In Belgium (as Francophone surnames rarely have tussenvoegsels) surnames are collated with the full surname including tussenvoegsels. "De Smet" comes before "Dossche".

In contrast to Dutch orthographic rules, in Belgium tussenvoegsels always keep their original orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

, as in meneer Van Der Velde, meneer P. Van Der Velde or Peter Van Der Velde.

History

Tussenvoegsels originate from the time that Dutch last names officially came into use. Many of the names are place names, which refer to cities (Van Coevorden

Coevorden

Coevorden is a municipality and a city in the northeastern Netherlands. During the municipal reorganisation in the province in 1998, Coevorden merged with Dalen, Sleen, Oosterhesselen and Zweeloo.- Population centers :...

, for example) or geographical locations (such as Van den Velde, or "of the fields"). The following list of tussenvoegsels includes approximate translations, some of which have maintained their earlier meaning more than others.

Common tussenvoegsels

• aan (at)
• bij (near)
• de (the, but "de" can also be French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
   and Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
   for "of".)
• den, der, d' (of the)
• het, 't (the)
• in (in)
• onder (under, below)
• op (on, at)
• over (over, beyond)
• 's (of the)
• te, ten, ter (of)
• tot (till)
• uit, uijt (from, out of)
• van
  Van (Dutch)
  Van is a preposition in the Dutch and Afrikaans languages, meaning "of" or "from". It is also a common prefix in Dutch surnames , as in Vincent van Gogh or Marco van Basten...
  
  , van den, van der (of, of the, of the), e.g. Van Dijk, Van der Geest (from / from the)
• voor (to)

Combinations

Combinations of these words are also common. For example:

• aan de, aan den, aan der, aan het, aan 't
• bij de, bij den, bij het, bij 't
• boven d'
• in de, in den, in der, in het, in 't
• onder de, onder den, onder het, onder 't
• over de, over den, over het, over 't
• op de, op den, op der, op het, op 't, op ten
• van de, van den, van der, van het, van 't, van ter
• uit de, uit den, uit het, uit 't, uit ten
• uijt de, uijt den, uijt het, uijt 't, uijt ten
• ver (a contraction of van der)
• voor de, voor den, voor in 't

External links

• X00's Alphabetic List of Surname Prefixes at www.itsmarc.com
• Music Cataloging at Yale AACR2; Capitalization of foreign terms at library.yale.edu
• Music Cataloging at Yale AACR2; Entry element for surnames with separately written prefixes at library.yale.edu