In German, von [fɔn] is a preposition which approximately means of or from.
When it is used as a part of a German family name, it is usually a nobiliary particle, like the French, Galician, Spanish and Portuguese de.[1] At certain times and places, it has been illegal for anyone who was not a member of the nobility to use von before their family name. However, in the Middle Ages the von particle was still a common part of names and was widely used also by commoners, e.g. "Hans von Duisburg" meant Hans from [the city of] Duisburg. The Dutch van, which is a cognate of von but does not indicate nobility, can be said to have preserved this earlier meaning.
The abolition of the monarchies in Germany and Austria in 1919 meant that neither state had a privileged nobility, and both had exclusively republican governments.
In Germany, this meant that in principle von simply became an ordinary part of the names of the people who used it. There were no longer any legal privileges or constraints associated with this naming convention. According to German alphabetical sorting people with von in their surnames – of noble or non-noble descent alike – are listed in telephone books and other files, under the rest of their name (e.g. Ludwig von Mises would be under M in the phone book rather than V).
In Austria, in contrast, not only were the privileges of the nobility abolished, their titles and prepositions were abolished as well. Thus, for example, Friedrich von Hayek became Friedrich Hayek in 1919 when Austria abolished all indicators of nobility in family names. On this issue, also see Austrian nobility.
In contrast to the peerage of the United Kingdom, the aristocracies of the German speaking countries was held to include untitled gentry, although the names of nearly all the families falling into this category did include von or "zu", or both. Again unlike typical families in the peerage, all members of German aristocratic families were usually considered to be noble.
Generally, the growth of the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire was accompanied by greater or lesser extent of German names’ inflow. Two main channels of such penetration were a) the absorption of territories where Germans constituted a part of local nobility like Finland, Poland, Baltic region etc. and b) the state-supported immigration of Germans into Russia.
As a rule, the members of the local nobility who have found themselves in Russia as a result of geopolitical shifts have preserved their privileges in the Empire. Their names were enlisted in the State Register of Noble Families as soon as the required documents were provided. Particle von was preserved as well; as soon as hyphen becomes broadly used in 18th and 19th century, it is used to separate von (e.g. Russian: Фон-Визин, von-Wiesen). Yet from the 20th century and on this particle is written separately, as in the German origin. In the Baltic region, the German language continued to be used alongside with Russian, so the "language environment" was friendly enough there to keep these names from "localization".
Meanwhile some of those whose ancestors came to the Russian service from abroad individually and who settled themselves in Moscow and core Russian provinces, sooner or later found it easier to adjust their names to the local speaking mode. But unlike immigrants to the United States during the 18th to 20th centuries who usually lost their nobility particles and often simplified the remaining parts of their names, immigrants to the Tsarist and Imperial Russia did not "lose" their noble particles while some of their core family names may have experienced insignificant changes.
At the end of 16th century, after the Livonian War Ivan IV of Russia invited Baron Berndt von Wiesen from the Livonian Brothers of the Sword for a Russian service and granted him some landed property. In the 17th century his descendants wrote their names as Russian: Фон Висин, sounds like Fon Vissin). Circa 1660 one of them adds -ow (Russian: Фон Висинов, like Fon Vissinow), yet in the 18th century this suffix is lost, and the middle consonant changes s→z (Russian: Фон-Визин, like Fon Vizin). Finally, in the 18th century Ivan Fonvizin decides to merge the particle von with the core, thus giving a start to a new Russian family of a German origin. His son, Denis Fonvizin (Russian: Фонвизин) became a playwright, whose plays are staged today.
In the Nordic countries, von is common but not universal in the names of noble families of German origin and has occasionally been used as a part of names of ennobled families of native or foreign, but non-German, extraction, as with the family of the philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright, which is of Scottish origin.
The preposition originated among German speakers during the Middle Ages and was commonly used to signify peoples origins simply from the name of the place they originated from or the name of their father, as the concept of surname did not start to come into common usage until later on. Indeed in many Germanic-speaking lands, universal adoption of surnames did not occur until mandated by the French Emperor Napoleon and the legal reforms he introduced in Europe ca. 1800. As the preposition became associated with nobility, however, only a minority of families using von in their names were commoners. It is incorrect, strictly speaking, to use the word untitled to refer to such families, because "untitled" and "non-noble" do not mean exactly the same thing in the German speaking world. However, it can be said that almost all German nobles use von, but not all users of von are noble. Nonetheless, many individuals of no titled descent choose to add the particle to their name.
Some very old noble families, usually members of the Uradel, do not use von but are nevertheless still noble.
Also, a very few German families were elevated to the nobility without the use of the preposition von. This was the case of the Riedesel Freiherren zu Eisenbach who received their baronial dignity in 1680. Ancient families distinguish themselves from newly ennobled ones by abbreviating von to v. This is also the traditional practice of nobles in North Germany.[citation needed]
The prefix von is not capitalized in German-speaking countries, unless it begins a sentence – for instance, "A book by von Humboldt", but "Von Humboldt wrote this book."
For capitalisation in Dutch and Flemish usage, see Van (Dutch).
In Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, the protagonist is a famous novelist formerly named Gustav Aschenbach who has recently been ennobled and so acquired the name von Aschenbach.
Outside of fiction, Lars von Trier, Diane von Fürstenberg, Erich von Stroheim, Josef von Sternberg, Dita Von Teese (note non-standard capitalization) and Denise van Outen added the von/van to their name by their own choice.
- ^ nobiliary particle in reference.com
