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[Surname] Dutch surname origin question
I've been told that my surname(Meeuwen)is the plural of the word meeu,which means "seagull" in Dutch.Can anybody verify this for me?
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MeeuwenHi,
you are right, meeuw means seagull in Dutch.
The word is a very old Germanic bird name.

Middle Low German: mewe
Dutch: meeuw
Old English: mæw
Old Islandic: mar
German: Möwe
Frisian: meau or mieu

It's probably a word describing the sound of a screaming seagull
I've found these informations in "Duden - Das Herkunftswörterbuch", a German book about the etymology of German words.

Regards
Judith
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That's right, BUT......... there are also other possibilities about the origin of the Meeuwen surname!

Check the 'Meeuwsen' surname in the database for this: "derived from the Dutch given name Meeuw, which comes from Bartholomeus (see Bartholomew)."

Also, Meeuwen is a place in the province of Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands, hence the surname Van Meeuwen, so it could also be that the 'Meeuwen' surname is a variant of Van Meeuwen.

I'm Dutch and since I've added quite a lot surnames that are alike the Meeuwen surname (see database), I will further investigate this surname and add it to the database later on.

Regards,

Lucille
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