van den Bos: Surname Saturday

Author: Brenda Leyndyke / Labels: ,

Anyone who has done Dutch research has come across names similar to  van den Bos.  The van and den part of the name are prefixes.

Prefixes are common with Dutch surnames.  Some of the common prefixes are de, der, den, van, te, ter, ten.  Combinations of these prefixes can be found also:  van den, van der, etc.  Kirk's dutch heritage has a variety of these prefixes in their surnames.

van den Bos is one of those surnames.  van means 'from'; den means 'the'.  So van den Bos means 'from the Bos'.  Bos is bunch or bundle.  van den Bos means 'from the bunch (or bundle).  The van den Bos family in Kirk's family tree comes from Sint Philipsland, Zeeland, Netherlands.

One of the interesting things about dutch names with prefixes is that the name is alphabetized in dutch search engines and dutch records without the prefix.  If searching a Dutch surname with a prefix in an online Netherlands search engine, search without the prefix(es).  When I search for van den Bos, I search for Bos.  A few of the online search engines provide a separate space for the prefixes.  If looking at registers that are alphabetized, I would look in the 'B' section, for those records in the Netherlands.  In the United States records, I have found them alphabetized by the 'V'.

Kirk's van den Bos, which became VandenBos in the United States, ancestry is:

Kirk Leyndyke
James Leyndyke
Peter LeynDyke (1894-1991)

The following van den Bos family members were all born in Sint Philipsland, Zeeland, Netherlands.

Neeltje 'Nellie' van den Bos (1877-1910)
Marinus 'Martin' van den Bos (1856-1916)
Cornelis van den Bos (1825-)
Marinus van den Bos (1793-1865)
Johannes van den Bos (abt 1759-1829)


Arend van den Bos (no sources for dates yet.)

4 comments:

Peter said...

Hi Brenda,
Pse allow me to elaborate a little on the prefixes of the van den Bos name and also on the meaning of the word "bos".
The word "bos" indeed means bunch or bundle but it also means forest or wood.
Many surnames in The Netherlands point at the geographical origin of an early ancestor. Old marriage certificates may say that so and so is a young man (meaning: an unmarried man)from Amsterdam. E.g. the name of a friend of mine is Richard van Amsterdam.
There is a city in The Netherlands named Den Bosch. That city may very well be the origin of the surname "van den Bosch" or "van den Bos".
I am not saying that Arend came from Den Bosch (and if he did, he certainly was not known there under that name). I just wanted to make you aware of all meanings of the van den Bos name.
Kind regards,
Peter

Brenda Leyndyke said...

Peter, I appreciate your additional information. It helps to have a dutch perspective on things. I will have to check out Den Bosch.

Joan Bos said...

In addition, Bos is one of the most common surnames in The Netherlands. See also: http://www.vernoeming.nl/meest-voorkomende-achternamen-van-nederland

Brenda Leyndyke said...

Thank you Joan for the link. It was interesting to see the names. I have a few other common surnames in my husband's ancestry.

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