Modern Dutch and Flemish surnames are regional: they usually appear concentrated in core areas in certain regions, where the name originated. Someone called Dijkstra is most likely Frisian or has Frisian ancestors. Typical western Flemish names are Vandenbussche, Florizoone and so on. In surname geography, the distribution of surname patterns is studied scientifically.
This online atlas of surnames in the Dutch language region (AFNeT) aims to map and comment on the distribution of types of Dutch and Flemish surnames in the year 2007. The focus lies on linguistically unlocking the rich variety hidden in our surnames.
There are four kinds of variations that appear in maps of contrasting types of surnames: orthographic variation (spelling), phonological variation (sounds), morphosyntactic variation (forms) and lexical variation (vocabulary).
This research brings fundamental contrasts to light which reflect historical fractures in the Dutch language region. These are partially unlocked in my research on surname geography which I have steadily published on since 1991 (see Bibliografie), but there is still a lot to discover!

Ann Marynissen
Institut für Niederlandistik
Universität zu Köln
https://niederlandistik.uni-koeln.de/personen/professoren/prof-dr-ann-marynissen

The Index lists the lexemes covered alphabetically. If you click on a lexeme (at the bottom), links to the websites appear, where the variation of that lexeme is mapped and commented on.
If you want to know if a specific surname is covered in one of the maps, you can type that name in the search bar on the upper right hand side.
If you are, for example, looking for an overview of all kinds of spelling variations that were examined, click on Orthografie on the homepage, then click on 'Spelling variation c/k/ck/kk', then choose one of the lexemes where the spelling variation is covered, for example 'c/k in the occupational name 'koopman''.
The sections Fonologie, Morfologie and the Lexicon can be accessed in the same way. The green links direct you to web pages with maps and comments, the red links do not (yet).
The chapter Categorieën familienamen (Surname categories) offers an overview of lexical motif groups and grammatical types and their distribution in the Dutch language area.

The maps in this surname atlas are based on a complete list of surnames of residents of Belgium resp. of the Netherlands in 2007.
The Belgian material contains the surnames, the place of residence and the number of name bearers per municipality of everyone who was registered in the Belgian population register on 31-12-2007.
The Dutch material contains all surnames (314,000 in total) with the number of name bearers per municipality, which were registered in the population register of the Dutch municipalities around September 5, 2007. I sincerely thank Leendert Brouwer (Central Bureau for Genealogy, The Hague) and Dr. Gerrit Bloothooft (Utrecht University) for making this material available to me for my scientific purposes.
Engineer Sebastiaan Marynissen (Whisthub BV) developed mapping software, with which name maps can be drawn with circle symbols of varying size and colour (following the format used in the Deutscher Familiennamenatlas), showing the frequency and distribution of the selected name types in the Dutch language area. Unless indicated otherwise, a representation showing relative frequencies, which allow the pronounced regional differences to become very well visible, is chosen for all maps. The lower limit for the data query is five name bearers per municipality.

The distribution of an individual Belgian or Dutch surname can be looked up on the websites https://familienaam.be (for Belgium) and https://www.cbgfamilienamen.nl/nfb/ (for the Netherlands). The same material is used for these websites as for this atlas.

The pages with the maps that are online published in this DokuWiki, are each structured as follows:

• Research question: explanation of what kind of variation is dealt with
• Data: enumeration of tokens (i.e. individual surnames with frequency) for each mapped type
• Map(s) (A, B, C…) with geographical distribution of the treated types in the Dutch language area
• Comment: Interpretation of the distribution of the types on the map
• Other variation: reference to other map pages with other types of variation on the same lexeme
• Tag: (Bottom right:) Overview of all pages in the atlas on which the tagged lexeme was treated