While I was reading about Dutch sailor Abel Tasman the other day for the explorer namestorm, I discovered that the name of Abel’s first wife was Claesgie Meyndrix.
Claesgie? Now that’s a name I’d never seen before.
But it wasn’t totally unfamiliar. It reminded me of Claesz, which I knew from the Dutch painters Willem Claesz. Heda and Pieter Claesz (both of whom created some amazing still-lifes).
Claesz is a short form of Claeszoon, which is a patronymic (i.e.,, it refers to bearer’s father). The first part, Claes, is a form of Claus. Claus comes from Nicholas, which can be traced back to two Greek words: nike, “victory,” and laos, “poeple.” The second part of Claeszoon, zoon, is Dutch for “son.”
And once I remembered all that, Claesgie didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. It was just Claes with a feminine suffix. (In fact, the name of Abel and Claesgie’s daughter, Claesjen, follows the same Claes+suffix formula.)