> The German "von" is a linguistic cognate of the Dutch "van", however, unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not indicative of the person's nobility or royalty. Van has a history of being used by commoners and nobility alike to simply signify ancestral relation to a particular place, (e.g. Willem van Oranje "William of [the] Orange [family]"; Jan van Ghent "John [who hails] from Ghent").
> The German "von" is a linguistic cognate of the Dutch "van", however, unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not indicative of the person's nobility or royalty. Van has a history of being used by commoners and nobility alike to simply signify ancestral relation to a particular place, (e.g. Willem van Oranje "William of [the] Orange [family]"; Jan van Ghent "John [who hails] from Ghent").