Talk:Sir de Villiers Graaf, 2nd Baronet

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[edit] Name

I am not sure that "sir" ought to be in the title, and I'm even less sure that this guy's given name is "De Villiers". Do we have a first name for him? NickelShoe 22:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

His name is genuinely de Villiers Graaf - see this --New Progressive 12:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Beefart says yes and no: 'Sir de Villiers Graaff' is absolutely correct. (Trust me. My grandmother was a Boer, I grew up amongst these good people, I speak their language fluently, I dwelled in South Africa for thirty years and I know the Graaff family personally. I was at university with the granddaughter of Sir de Villiers and I visited at their farm near Ceres in the Bokkeveld. Note: (1) the surname is Graaff, with two effs, not Graaf. By the way, the name is not pronounced Graf. It is Xraaaff, where the X represents the gutteral sound of ch in the Scottish word loch. If you are from New York or LA, give up now..... :) (2) the given name ("Christian name" if you will) is de Villiers. Small d. Amongst Afrikaners, most surnames are of Dutch origin and often contain the words de, der, van, van de, van der or van den. Van means from and de(r)(n) means 'the'. So de Groot means the Great and van der Woude means from the Forest (3) It is common for Afrikaners to use surnames as given names. Thus the politician of the 1960's who opposed the Apartheid regime was van Zyl Slabbert. His given name was "van Zyl", with the small v and everyone called him 'van Zyl' (pronounced Fun-zhail). A noted Afrikaner poet was N.P. van Wyk Louw (4) South Africa was part of the Commonwealth. Graaff was knighted. He was therefore Sir de Villiers Graaff and, had he gone on his knee before his sovereign, the Queen would have said to him "Arise, Sir de Villiers".

The surname “Graaff” is absolutely correct. It is true that their name is often miss-spelt “Graaf” (such is the case with the Graaff highway in Jo'burg) however Graaff is the original and still used spelling of the surname.

Baronets, as they hold hereditary titles, often for a large part of their lives, follow the same practice as hereditary peers and should have their title noted in the beginning of the article. The format is Sir John Smith, 17th Baronet. For the article title, this format should only be used when disambiguation is necessary; otherwise, the article should be located at John Smith. John Smith, 17th Baronet should never be used with the postfix and without the prefix. from WP guidelines Paul venter 13:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The French Origin of the de Villiers Name

The de Villiers name is in fact of French Huguenot origin. The "de" is French for "of" or "from". The progenitors of the de Villiers name in the South African region were Pierre / Abraham / & Jacques de Villiers from La Rochelle France who arrived in the Cape in 1689. Even before I learned this fact I have long known that de Villiers was a French name as I live in Quebec where there are a number of de Villiers (as there are in France & South Africa) & am fluent in French. The de Villiers name is one of the more easily recognizable French names.

Some Afrikaans names of French origin such as Viljoen -from Villion- / Pienaar -from Pinard- / Cronje -from Cronier- & Nortje -from Nortier- are harder to recognize as French before learning the history of those specific names in the region.

Names such as Joubert / Du Plessis / Terreblanche / Du Toit / Le Roux / Marais & Naudé are much easier to recognize as French names as they have retained their original French spelling.