Submitted Surname Revision History

Possibly from an unknown place name meaning either "at the brook" or "Thor's stream" in German. A noteworthy bearer was the Dutch liberal statesman and prime minister Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (1798-1872), whose family was of German origin; he is best known for almost single-handedly drafting the revision of the Constitution of the Netherlands, which turned the country from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy, during the Revolutions of 1848.