238 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

province of Utrecht, and settled at what is now called Flatlands, in our county, but what was called by him New Amersfoort. Some names, in the classification which I have attempted, have undergone a slight change in their transfer to America. Barculo is from Borculo, a town in Guelderland; Van Auden is from Andel, in the province of Groningen; Snediker should be Snediger; Bonton, if of Dutch origin, should be Bonten (son of Bondwijn or Baldwin), otherwise it is French. Van Cott was probably Van Catt, of South Holland. The Catti were the original inhabitants of the country, and hence the name. There is one family which has defied all my etymological research. It is evidently Dutch, but has most likely undergone some change, and that is the name of Van Brunt. There is no such name now existing in Holland. There are a few names derived from relative situation to a place: thus Voorhees is simply before or in front of Hess, a town in Guelderland; and Onderdonk is below Donk, which is in Brabant. There are a few names more arbitrary—such as Middagh (midday); Conrad (bold counsel); Hagedorn (hawthorn); Bogaert (orchard); Blauvelt (blue-field); Rosevelt (rose-field); Stuyvesant (quicksand); Wyckoff (parish-court); Hooghland (highland); Dorland (arid land); Opdyke (on the dyke); Hasbrook (hare's marsh)—and afford a more ready means of identification of relationship. The names of Brinkerhoff and Schenck, the latter of which is very common here, may be either of Dutch or German origin. Martin Schenck was a somewhat celebrated general in the war of independence. Ditmars is derived from the Danish, and Bethune is from a place in the Spanish Netherlands, near Lille. Lott is a Dutch name, though it has an English sound. There is a person of that name, from Gaelderland, residing in the Hague. Pieter Lots was one of the schepens of Amersfoort in 1676, and I infer from the patronymic form of his name that Lott is a baptismal name and is derived from Lodewyck or Lewis, and that Pieter Lots means Peter the son of Lodewyck or Lot, as the former is often contracted. Some names axe disguised in a Latin dress. The practice prevailed, at the time of the emigration to our country, of changing the names of those who had gone through the university and received a degree, from plain Dutch into sonorous Roman. The names of all our early ministers were thus altered. Johannes