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The van Surname

van Name Meaning and History

  1. Vietnamese: unexplained.
  2. Dutch (De Van): metonymic occupational name for a winnower or a maker of winnowing fans, from Middle Dutch van(ne) ‘fan’.
  3. English: Western English variant of Fann.
  4. Czech (Van): from a pet form of the personal name Václav, Old Czech Veceslav (see Vacek).
  5. Ukrainian: from a short form of the personal name Ivan, Slavic form of John.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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The van name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the van family name as far back in history as possible.

van Family Facts

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Distribution of van Families in the US in 1920
Number of van families
 47-92
 16-46		 1-15
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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Year

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  • You can decide where (in which states) to start searching for van records.
  • You can see how van families moved over time by selecting different Census years.

What do I do next?

The information for this map came from Ancestry.com’s US Federal Census Collection.
  • Census records can tell you little-known facts about your ancestors such as birthplace, residence and occupation.
  • Click here to search van census records.

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