Nobiliary particle
A nobiliary particle is a type of onomastic particle used in a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of a family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. In some languages, it is the same as a regular prepositional particle that was used in the creation of many surnames. In some countries, it became customary to distinguish the nobiliary particle from the regular one by a different spelling, although in other countries these conventions did not arise, occasionally resulting in ambiguity. The nobiliary particle can often be omitted in everyday speech or certain contexts.
Denmark and Norway
In Denmark and Norway, there is a distinction between nobiliary particles in family names and prepositions denoting an individual person's place of residence.Nobiliary particles like af, von, and de are integrated parts of family names. The use of particles was not a particular privilege for the nobility. On the other hand, particles were almost exclusively used by and associated with them. Especially in the late 17th and 18th centuries, a person would often receive a particle along with his or her old or new family name when ennobled. Examples are families like de Gyldenpalm and von Munthe af Morgenstierne. Otherwise, particles would arrive together with immigrants. Examples are families like von Ahnen. Prominent non-noble families having used particles are von Cappelen, von der Lippe, and de Créqui dit la Roche.
The preposition til is placed behind a person's full name in order to denote his or her place of residence, for example Sigurd Jonsson til Sudreim.
France
In Franceand in England, largely as a result of the Norman Conquestthe particle de precedes a nom de terre in many families of the French nobility: for example, Maximilien de Béthune. A few do not have this particle: for example, Pierre Séguier, Lord Chancellor of France. The particle can also be du, d' , or des. In French, de indicates a link between the land and a person—either landlord or peasant.The nobleman was always designated escuyer, for 'squire' in English form, or chevalier for 'knight'. Only knights were designated by the spoken style monseigneur or messire for 'sir', as, for example, "monseigneur Bertrand du Guesclin, chevalier"in English form, "Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, knight".
By convention, surnames with the non-noble use of the particle de are spelled as a single word, though many such surnames conserved the de as a separate word.
Since the sixteenth century, surnames among the French nobility have often been composed of a combination of patronymic names, titles, or noms de terres joined by the preposition de, as in "Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord". The use of this particle began to be an essential appearance of nobility. Following the end of the Kingdom of France, however, the use of de did not invariably denote nobility. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some middle-class families simply adopted the particle without being ennobled; Maximilien Robespierre's family, for example, used the particle for some generations.
Germany and Austria
In Germany and Austria, von or zu generally precedes the surname of a noble family. If it is justified, they can be used together : the ruler of Liechtenstein as of 2022, for example, is Johannes Adam Ferdinand Alois Josef Maria Marko d'Aviano Pius von und zu Liechtenstein.In some cases – although unusually, and perhaps introduced to distinguish collateral branches of the same family – these more common particles might be supplemented with auf : Von A-dynasty/place, zu B-town, auf C-ville/location/residence. Rarer variants are "von der", "von dem", "zum", "zur", etc.
As in France and Spain, not all noble families use a nobiliary particle. The names of the most ancient nobility, the Uradel, but also names of some old untitled nobility, often do not contain either von or zu, such as Grote, Knigge or Vincke. Conversely, the prefix von occurs in the names of 200 to 300 non-noble families, much like van in the Netherlands.
Especially in northwestern Germany, e.g. Bremen, Hamburg, Holstein, Lower Saxony, Schleswig, Westphalia, and in German-speaking Switzerland, the particles von, zu, etc., may be elements in non-noble surnames and usually designate the place of origin. In Austria and Bavaria, non-noble surnames containing von were widely altered by compounding it to the main surname element in the 19th century, such as von Werden → Vonwerden.
Hungary
In the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary Latin was the official language in which royal decrees and all kinds of legal documents were issued. Hungarian noble families used the nobiliary particle de with the name of an estate granted by the King as a royal donation. For instance, the aristocratic Hungarian family of the Counts Zichy, having received donations of the two estates of Zichy and Vásonkeő, used de Zichy and de Vásonkeő; as this family used two nobiliary particles, the construction in Latin for the whole family name is Comes Zichy de Zichy et Vásonkeő: the Latin conjunction wikt:et#Latin connects the estate's names. In Hungarian, the relevant county or town of origin is represented with the suffix -i at its end: so, in the case of this family, the place names would be written as zicsi and vásonkeői and would be placed before the family name; the two place names are connected by the Hungarian és. So the result would be zicsi és vásonkeői Zichy.Portugal
Starting in the High Middle Ages, West Iberian nobles, who had only used patronyms, started adding the names of their manors, and in a few cases nicknames, into their names. For instance, Egas Gomes, lord of Sousa, became Egas Gomes de Sousa. King Alfonso X's son Fernando was said to be born with a hairy mole and was called Fernando de la Cerda, and his son Fernando kept the nickname as his second name and was also called Fernando de la Cerda. In the 15th and 16th centuries, these surnames were adopted by the common people and are among the most common Portuguese surnames today, so the de particle and its variations have not indicated nobility for centuries.Furthermore, Portuguese nobility, irrespective of any noble name with or without particle, is traditionally recognised only in people both of whose grandfathers and grandmothers are noble.
Portuguese surnames do not indicate nobility, as usually the same surnames exist in noble and non-noble families. The restriction to nobility and the clergy of bearing arms at the beginning of the 16th century, when king Manuel I extinguished the previous bourgeoisie armorial, usually shows someone to be noble if he or she bears personal or family arms. But nobility in Portugal was never restricted to the bearers of arms, and many Portuguese nobles did not or do not have arms at all.
The preposition de and its different orthographic forms, as in France, do not indicate nobility in the bearer. Modern Portuguese law recognises any citizen's right not to sign these particles, even if they are present in that citizen's identification documents, and the opposite right, i.e. to sign one's name with such particles even if not present in one's documents, is also recognized. In fact, articles and prepositions are considered in Portuguese nomenclature an embellishment to any name.
Traditionally, good taste made Portuguese nobility cut down on the prepositions linking their many surnames, and they would sign just one at the beginning of the name; the last surname would be preceded by e. For instance, the name João Duarte da Silva dos Santos da Costa de Sousa should be signed just as João Duarte da Silva Santos Costa e Sousa. In the present day, it may also legally be signed João Duarte Silva Santos Costa Sousa. The last e is a substitute for all previous surnames' prepositions except the first one, and cannot ever be used without a previous preposition to justify it. An exception to this rule is only shown with duplicate surnames linked by e, for instance maternal surnames that come before the paternal ones: Diogo Afonso da Conceição e Silva ''Tavares da Costa.
From the 19th century on, it became customary for Portuguese titled nobility to indicate their titles as subsidiary surnames, as, for instance, in the name of Diana Álvares Pereira de Melo, 11th Duchess of Cadaval who goes by Diana de Cadaval'' after her title. This social rule does not apply to members of the Portuguese royal house.
Spain
In Spain, the nobiliary particle de is also used in two different styles. The first is a "patronymic-de-toponymic" formula, as used by, among others, the fifteenth-century general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the fourteenth-century chronicler and poet Pero López de Ayala, the European discoverer of the eastern Pacific, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, and many other conquistadors. The second style is use of the particle de before the entire surname. This style resembles but is more ambiguous than the French one, since there is no convention for a different spelling when the de is simply a prepositional particle in non-noble toponymic names such as De la Rúa or De la Torre. Examples of the nobiliary particle de without patronymic include the names of the sixteenth-century Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz and the conquistador Hernando de Soto. This is a common tradition in Spanish culture. Unlike French, Spanish lacks elision, and so no contraction is used when the surname starts with a vowel, but contraction is used when the surname includes the article el as in Baltasar del Alcázar.A Spanish law on names from 1958 and still in force does not allow a person to add a de to their surname if it does not already have it. The law does allow for one exception: a de may be added in front of a surname that could be otherwise misunderstood as a forename. Conclusive proof of the nobility of a surname can be determined by establishing whether that surname is associated with a blazon, since for centuries coats of arms have been borne legally only by persons of noble condition.
Surnames composed of two names linked by a hyphen, implying that equal importance is given to both families, do not indicate nobility. For example, the hyphenated surname Suárez-Llanos does not indicate nobility.