In German, von 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. At certain times and places, it has been illegal for anyone who was not a member of the nobility to use von before the family name. However, in the Middle Ages, the von particle was still a common part of names and was widely used also by commoners; thus, "Hans von Duisburg" meant Hans from Duisburg. The Dutch van, which is a cognate of von but does not indicate nobility, can be said to have preserved this earlier meaning.
Read more about Von: Capitalisation, Examples
Famous quotes containing the word Von:
“New inventions can and will be made; however, nothing new can be thought of that concerns moral man. Everything has already been thought and said which at best we can express in different forms and give new expressions to.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)