I am not sure whether the Th is indeed part of the surname or supposed to be a suffix.
2006-10-01 22:05:32 · 5 answers · asked by Julie S 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
The last name looks like a southern saxon name to me (so either northwest german or dutch), and the "v" instead of "f' in veld makes it dutch.
Now, Europeans hardly ever have middle names, so I guess this person is an American with dutch heritage.
We would not call anyone J Th (like "Jaytee") ever!!
Only Americans do that.
All male names starting with Th can be right in this example (since I do not know that person, I have to guess).
Thomas (yes, Athene, I am sorry, but you absolutely CANNOT lose the h in Thomas!!), Thorsten, Thoralf, Thorolf, Thorwald, Theodor, Theophil, Theoderich are examples I can think of spontaneously. Maybe there are more which I can't think of right now.
During the last century some orthographic reforms have been made, and many grman words have lost the "h" after the t, since it was not spoken anyway. "Thee" all of a sudden became "Tee", "Thal" turned into "Tal", and so forth.
And you will find "Torsten" in any school class today, but side by side with "Thorsten" as well. But Thomas always kept his h.
2006-10-02 07:37:38 · answer #1 · answered by albgardis T 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Th usually stands for "Theodore" . The name J. Th. Rietveld is actually not German but Dutch.
2006-10-02 05:12:09 · answer #2 · answered by Courage 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Some native German names before the 20th century have th in them, such as the word thal 'valley' in many placenames (the most famous of which is Neanderthal 'Neander Valley'). In these names, the th is pronounced as a t (so the modern spelling of Neanderthal is actually Neandertal).
2006-10-02 08:20:49 · answer #3 · answered by Taivo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Th is dhort for "Theodor", Thomas is spelt Tomas in German, and would be abbreviated by T. The "Th" is there because the original Greek of the name would have only one letter, theta, for the Th, although in German it's pronounced "t".
2006-10-02 05:27:03 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I believe that the example that you give is actually a Dutch name. All I could guess is that his name is something like Jan Thomas or something and the Th. stands for Thomas
2006-10-02 05:11:49 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋