HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 237

son might be William Tunissen Bleecker (bleacher). Upon the abandonment of the old system of names, this practice went with it; but it often happened that, while one brother took the father's patronymic as a family name, another took that of his occupation or personal designation. Thus originated such families as Coster, Brouwer, Bleecker, Schoonmaker, Stryker, Schuyler, Cryger, Snediker, Hegeman, Hofman, Dykman, Bleekman, Wortman, and Tieman. Like the others, they are not ancient family names, and are not all to be traced to Holland as the place where they first became fixed. Some of them were adopted in our own country.

“A third practice, evidently designed, like that referred to, to obviate the confusions of the first, was to append the name of the place where the person resided—not often of a large city, but of a particular, limited locality, and frequently of a particular farm or natural object. This custom is denoted in all the family names which have the prefix of Van, Vander, Ver (which is a contraction of Vander), and Ten—meaning, respectively, of, of the, and at the. From towns in Holland we have the families of Van Cleef, Van Wyck, Van Schaack, Van Bergen, and others; from Guelderland, those of Van Sinderen, Van Dyk, and Van Buren; from Utrecht, Van Winkel; from Friesland, Van Ness; from Zeeland, Van Duyne. Sometimes the Van has been dropped, as in the name of Boerum, of the province of Friesland; of Covert, of North Brabant; of Westervelt, of Drenthe; of Brevoort and Wessels, in Guelderland. The prefixes, Vander or Per, and Ten,1 were adopted where the name was derived from a particular spot, thus: Vanderveer (of the ferry); Vanderburg, of the hill; Vanderbilt (of the bildt—i. e., certain elevations of ground in Guelderland and New Utrecht); Vanderbeck (of the brook); Vanderhoff (of the court); Verplanck (of the plank); Verhultz (of the holly); Verkerk (of the church); Ten Eyck (at the oak); Tenbroeck (at the marsh). Some were derived, as we have observed, from particular farms, thus: Van Couwenhoven (also written Van Cowdenhoven—cold farms). The founder of that family in America, Wolphert Gerrissen Van Cowenhoven, came from Amersfoort, in the

1 The prefixes vander and van do ought to be written separately, and not with capital letters, as, van Anden, and not Vananden; van der Chys, and not Vanderchys de Witt, and not Dewitt. The prefix von to German.