Part 2 of the Hans Brinker repost, with the names deconstruction.

If you’re actually using this page as a resource –I decided to split the blog post in two when I suddenly realised that some people might want to do that– please comment or mail to tell me if you’d prefer the names to be ordered thematically or alphabetically instead.

Here they are in order of appearance, place names as well as personal names, but skipping quoted bits of Dutch which also need copy-editing, because my command of nineteenth-century Dutch isn’t up to scratch:

Mynheer von Stoppelnoze –  “Mynheer” is probably the usual 1865 spelling, so I’ll let that pass. But “Von Stoppelnoze”? “Von” is German, as are many of the names Dodge presents as Dutch, and I can only find Stoppelnoze as a German name too.

Hans Brinker –  “Brinker” is okay, “Hans” is probably okay (slightly German-flavoured) though if he’s a peasant boy the usual form would have been Hannes.

Gretel –  Someone told the editor that this was a German name (like Ludwig and Carl) and Dodge added a note: “Ludwig, Gretel and Carl were named after German friends. The Dutch form would be Lodewyk, Grietje and Karel”. Greetje would perhaps be even more common than Grietje, but Hansel and Gretel are called “Hans en Grietje” in Dutch and that might have some influence. Because she’s a main character, the name Gretel quickly becomes annoying. The first Dutch translation called her “Griete”, a more modern one “Greetje”.

Dame Brinker –  I don’t know the 1865 meaning of “dame”, but none of the modern ones seem to fit (“the female equivalent to a knight”? “slightly derogatory way of referring to a woman?”) I think “vrouw Brinker” or “jufvrouw Brinker” would have been better. “Dame” means “lady” in modern Dutch; as a vocative it’s distinctly lower-class now.

Raff Brinker –  Raff is not even a German name; it’s probably a faux-Dutch abbreviation of Rafael.

the Veermyk sluice –  Probably a misreading for Veerwijk or even Vreeswijk.

Hilda van Gleck –  At least she’s Van and not Von, but Gleck is pure German. Also, Hilde is more plausible than Hilda, but as she’s rich Hilda isn’t outrageous.

Annie Bouman –  Nothing whatsoever wrong with it.

Rychie Korbes –  Her father is Mynheer van Korbes, which would make her “van Korbes” too. And “Rychie”? Probably Rietje (pronounced almost “reechie”), or Riekje, or Riekie. Perhaps “ie” was too daunting for American readers.

Carl Schummel –  “Carl” has already been covered. “Schummel” is probably “Schimmel”.

Peter van Holp –  Nothing wrong with that, though “van Holp” is a very uncommon name.

Ludwig van Holp –  Already been covered. He ought to be Lodewijk, possibly spelt with y.

Jacob Poot –  Nothing wrong with it.

Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck –  Er, yes. Called “Voost” by his friends. I’d have suggested “Joost-Albert” if I’d arrived on Dodge’s doorstep by time machine.

Katrinka Flack –  She’s a flighty kind of character, so it’s fitting for her to have a gypsy-like name, but it still doesn’t ring quite true. And the surname is either German or English/American (Roberta Flack!), though there may be some in the Netherlands.

Meitje Klenck –  Dame Brinker’s maiden name. “Meitje” will do, though “Mietje” would be more believable. “Klenck”, again, has German spelling and is unlikely to have been a normal Dutch name at the time.

Harengracht –  Misspelling of “Herengracht”. It’s spelt right later on.

Mevrouw van Stoop –  Normal, though plain “Stoop” would have been even more normal.

Dr. Boekman –  Normal.

Laurens Boekman –  Completely normal.

Ben(jamin) Dobbs –  Jacob’s English cousin, with an ordinary English name. Also, his brother Robby and sister Jenny.

Jan van Gorp –  Johannes Goropius Becanus, spelt right and quoted right.

Karel van Gleck –  Karel is indeed the proper form.

Kathrine –  Uncommon but not unheard-of form (see Katrina below).

Hendrick –  May have been an obsolete spelling even in the 1840s (when the book is set): usually “Hendrik”.

Broom –  May be a misspelling of “Bram” (from Abraham).

Katy –  English spelling; Dutch would be “Kaatje”.

Huygens –  Patronymic surname; “Huygen” or “Huigen” are Dutch forms of “Hugo”, but Hugo itself would also be plausible.

Lucretia –  Evidently named after an Italian business associate’s wife!

Wolfert –  Uncommon but okay.

Diedrich –  German name; Dutch is “Diederik” or “Dirk”.

Mayken –  Obsolete spelling, even for the time. “Maaike” is perhaps too modern, but I can’t think of an intermediate form.

Voost –  This is probably not Voostenwalbert himself. May be a misspelling of Joost.

Katrina –  Uncommon but not unheard-of form. Catharina (or with K) is more usual.

Jakob Cats –  Only ever -c- in “Jacob”.

Lambert van Mounen –  “Lambert” is completely okay; “van Mounen” is unique to this book though it looks normal enough. “Van Manen”, for instance, is a perfectly ordinary Dutch name.

Van Tromp –  Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp would have been surprised to see “van” in his name!

Gerard Douw –  did spell his name with -w occasionally (and even as “Dow”), though I’d only seen “Dou” until now.

Paul Potter –  Usually “Paulus”.

Kanau (Poot) –  Misspelling of “Kenau” (see below under Kanau Hesselaer), and a very uncommon name in the nineteenth century.

William Beukles –  Bad misspelling of “Willem Beukelszoon” (van Biervliet), who invented the process of haringkaken, gibbing (thank you, Wikipedia as a translation engine!), a way to clean fresh-caught herring that makes it easier to cure.

Breedstraat –  Yes, okay, but I happen to know that it’s been called Breestraat since time immemorial.

Rood Leeuw –  Ought to be “Roode”.

Huygens Kleef –  Another first-name Huygens. “Kleef” is all right, but there I’d expect a Van.

the Vleit Canal –  it’s “Vliet”, which already means “canal”; cognate to “Fleet” as in Fleet Street.

Bilderdyk –  The -y- is probably nineteenth-century spelling; it’s usually Bilderdijk these days.

Van der Does –  Spelt right. Strangely, though he appears in history as Dousa, the street in Leiden called after him is called Doezastraat. (There’s a Dousastraat in Noordwijk, about 10 kilometers from Leiden.)

Kanau Hesselaer –  Misspelling of “Kenau Hasselaer” (see this women’s history page, in Dutch). Her name has some variant spellings, but Dodge’s -a- in the first syllable probably comes from her source. John Lothrop Motley used the spelling “Kanau Hasselaer” in The Rise of the Dutch Republic in 1856, which she may well have read. It’s clear that Georg Ebers (The Burgomaster’s Wife, 1882) and G.A. Henty (By Pike and Dyke, 1890) read the same book…

Lucas van Leyden, or Hugens –  Thought for a moment that I’d caught a real Huygens (either Constantijn or his son Christiaan) until I looked him up by date. Anyway, neither of the Huygenses were painters. Apparently we don’t know whether Lucas van Leyden’s father was called Jacob or, indeed, Hugen. Lucas van Leyden is spelt right in spite of the -y-.

Harel de Moor –  Either Karel or Carel.

Van Dyck –  According to Wikipedia the name of the painter has many variant spellings, but for once here’s the most common one.

Fortunatas –  From context, probably Fortunatus.

Mevrouw van Gend, Jasper van Gend –  Normal, though “Gent” is more usual.

Quentin Matsys –  lots of variants again: “his first name also recorded as Quinten or Kwinten and his last name as Massys, Metsys, or Matsijs (1466-1530)”. Dodge obviously picked the most familiar-looking one. He painted the Ugly Duchess.

the dockyards of Saardam –  Saardam is the eighteenth-century name for what is now Zaandam.

Maurits Huis –  This is one word, “Mauritshuis”.

Van Speyk –  Again, the less purely-Dutch variant of the name was chosen (Van Speijk is the more Dutch one).

Geraerts (or Gerard) –  Gérard, note acute accent, is actually correct, because he was a Frenchman.

Louisa de Coligny –  The correct spelling is “Louise”, because she was a Frenchwoman.

Van Stoepel –  The name seems to be unique to this book, though it looks very Dutch.

Schlossen Mill –  Looks German to me; can’t find a reference. It could be “slotmolen” or “sluismolen”, that is, “lock mill” or “sluice mill”, referring to a windmill used for draining the polders.

Janzoon Kolp –  “Janzoon” is a patronymic and can’t be used as a stand-alone name. He should have been called “Jan Janzoon Kolp” at the very least. Kolp is a rare, but existing Dutch surname.

Kate Wouters –  “Kate” is the English form; Dutch would be “Kaat” or “Kaatje”. Wouters is perfectly ordinary.

Vollenhoven –  Dutch noble name, usually preceded by “Van”.

Rip Donderdunck –  Absolutely a made-up name, nothing Dutch about it.

Voppelploot –  Ditto.

Von Choppem –  German-style, but obviously made up. “Van Schoppen” comes closest.

Hoogsvliet –  Plausible enough, though usually without -s-.

Jan Kamphuisen –  Ditto, though usually with -z- instead of -s-.

Saint Bavon –  “Bavo” is the usual form. Patron saint of Haarlem.

Gottingen –  Needs an o-umlaut, Göttingen.

Gerard and Lambert Boomphoffen –  The first names are okay; “Boomphoffen” is outrageous. Something like “Boomhoven” would still be strange but much less silly.

And I’m not commenting on all the English names in the penultimate chapter, which seem to have been chosen for quaintness.

Repost from 2008; I promised some people. Will be in 2 parts: this reading notes post with some afterthoughts added that I originally posted later, and a deconstruction of the names. Somewhat edited (for instance the link to the book text now points to Gutenberg; it wasn’t there yet when I first posted it).

I don’t know what prompted it [ETA: a daughter trying to keep a beer bottle from squirting by plugging it with her finger], but I read Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates. And couldn’t stop reading it once I was underway, though it’s very dated (that figures; it was published in 1865) and it kept me wishing I had a time machine so I could go and be Mary Mapes Dodge’s copy editor, because she badly needed one. It’s surprisingly gripping.

Note that Hans Brinker is not the name of the boy with his finger in the dike. It’s a story-in-the-story in this book. That story is not, and never has been, something that every Dutch child knows; it’s only known in the Netherlands from translations and retellings of Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates. I shudder to think that whole generations of children in the United States had most of their knowledge of the Netherlands from this book alone. No wonder so many tourists arrive with serious misconceptions.

The style is uneven: pleasantly entertaining narrative with sudden outbreaks of lyricism (but that’s the nineteenth century for you) and expositions of history (ditto, I think) or heavily coloured accounts of Dutch culture. I won’t go into the facts I think she got wrong. Some of those may be things that really were that different in the mid-19th century (but did literally every man smoke a pipe all the time? and did harbour workmen work completely silently?), some may be because her only source for Dutch culture at the time was one old couple who had emigrated to the United States as children. That also explains why she states that there’s ice thick enough to skate on the whole winter: the first decades of the nineteenth century were the tail-end of the Little Ice Age, and the old couple may have remembered that from their own childhood.

She got a whole lot of facts right, too. The middle part of the book, chapters 10-14 and 16-31 (of 48), is a travelogue and history lesson, not really relevant to the plot so most abridged versions cut it. Here it’s obvious that the author did do her research. The Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis still exist, and still contain most of the things the characters see there.

It’s the wrong names –some spectacularly wrong– that vex me most, and I’ll have a shot at them. The most striking one is Voostenwalbert Schimmelpenninck: the surname does exist, but nobody except this boy in the book has ever been called Voostenwalbert. Ewoud Sanders wrote in 2007 (NRC, article sadly no longer available online) that Dodge might have read the name of “W. Albert van Oosten” written indistinctly as “v.oosten w.albert”. I’ve put the deconstruction of names in another post because it was getting long, and I thought people might want only the list.

There’s a statue of the boy with his finger in the dike in Spaarndam. According to this rather good article about Hans Brinker (in Dutch), it was placed there for the American tourists, who all wanted to see exactly where the boy had put his finger in the dike. Also, I recommend reading past the pictures of the statue in the first link.

For months after I posted this Hans Brinker kept coming to my attention by a kind of serial serendipity. Jaap de Berg wrote in the language column of  Trouw basically what I wrote above, prompted by a news item in another paper about President Obama: “as if he were a modern-day Hansje Brinker, able to do heroic work with one finger kilometers under water”. (Again, the link has disappeared.)

This made me look up the Wikipedia article, which turns out to be surprisingly accurate and complete. And of course, there’s a non-zero chance that the boy with his finger in the dike –if, which I doubt, he existed at all– was also called Hans, or rather Hannes.

(Also, a student wanted to quote my names deconstruction; recognition at last!)