High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Van is a preposition in the Dutch and Afrikaans languages, meaning "of" or "from". It is also a common prefix in Dutch surnames (being known as a tussenvoegsel), as in Vincent van Gogh or Marco van Basten. It can appear by itself or in combination with another prefix, such as van de, van der and van den (current and archaic forms of the article de, meaning "the") and less commonly van het or van `t (the neutral article het). The German "von" is a cognate of Dutch "van", though unlike the German "von", the Dutch "van" is not an indication of nobility or royalty. These prepositions usually refer to a geographic place.