People's names

[Antoon Pardon]

On 2006-10-11, Theerasak Photha <hanumizzle at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/10/06, Piet van Oostrum <piet at cs.uu.nl> wrote:
>> >>>>> Roel Schroeven <rschroev_nospam_ml at fastmail.fm> (RS) wrote:
>>
>> >RS> It's the same here in Belgium. Except that our Van is with a capital V in
>> >RS> most cases; if it's a lower v it either indicates nobility or a Dutch name.
>>
>> >RS> I don't see it as a problem. I prefer having Van Straeten and Van Stralen
>> >RS> next to each other than having them mixed up with names without Van like
>> >RS> this:
>> >RS> Straeten, Van
>> >RS> Straetmans
>> >RS> Stralen, Van
>>
>> In Holland it is sorted without the 'van' 'de' etc.
>
> Which was my original point in mentioning similar Portuguese names. :)

But in Belgium (That includes the flemisch region) names are sorted
with the 'van' 'de' etc. De reason is rather simple. If you hear
someone's name as "Van den Hautte", you have no idea how it is spelled

  Van Den Haute
  Vandenhaute
  Vanden Haute

These are all possible. Now I think you can hardly sort "Vandenhaute"
next to "haute" because then you would need to know al kind of
prefixes that may be also written seperately. So by putting all these
names together it makes for easier searching in case you have doubts
on how the name is actually written.

> BTW, do Dutch/Flemish family names now follow the trend of dropping
> declension, as seen in both languages (dialects?) in general: e.g.,
> 'de' instead of 'der'?

Yes but not in names (at least in Flemish families)

-- 
Antoon Pardon