Hello Andrea and those on the list. I'm afraid that someone may have misinformed you as to the meaning of the -tje ending. It does not mean "dau. of". It is simply the diminutive meaning something like "little". English also has them although they don't always mean "little". cook, cookie finger, fingy Rick, Ricky. Mike, Mikey, Incidentally there is no real English equivalent to the sound "tje" that you found in Dutch. It is called a palatalized "t" (there are several levels of palatalization which I won't go into here, palatalization was half of my Master's degree in Linguistics). It is sort of like a very light "tch". Of some interest is that Afrikaans, which is derived from Dutch, uses "tjie" which sounds like "k" so you get words like: kook, kootjie (cook and little tidbits of food) kaart, kaartjie (map and ticket) I know someone who did her whole thesis on Afrikaans diminutives (which are very interesting to linguists, but not to genealogists). Also in diminutives you get the ending "dje". the sounds t and d are formed the same in the mouth except with "d" the vocal cords vibrate and in "t" they don't. I won't try to explain what that sounds like. So I can imagine how someone may think that the "tje" means "dau. of" in the roughest sense in that it means "litte x" but has nothing to do with daughter. Most nouns if they can be made into something smaller or cute can take a diminutive ending, but it doesn't mean anything other than that. Things get a bit more complicated in Dutch names as shortened versions of names tend to favour the last syllable (Catryntje --> Tryntje) so names like the following may appear (spelling aside, but you get the picture): Conrad --> Radie Matthias --> Theissen Hendrik --> Dirk (the switch of r and i is called methathesis) Margaret --> Garettje and Gretchen (a bit of metathesis here again) Marinus --> Rienie Wilemmina --> Minie Then there is the obvious Elizabeth in English which gives us Betty and shows that English used to do the same thing in its past. Other names may have a more obscure origin. I know someone named Sanet which is a mystery to me (and she's not the only Sanet around). I also know an Anina but I've forgotten that one. So when you see these dimunitives think "t", think "tch", think "k" and you might get closer to the full Christian name if the person (male or female) was given a full Christian name, which is or was not only the case. Michel