During the seventeenth century, most people did not know how to read or write. The names were passed on phonetically and could be varied through time. The church was practically the only place where names were written down as births, marriages and deaths were kept in church registers. The priest, who sometimes hardly knew how to write himself, put on paper what he had heard and understood, using the spelling  which corresponded to the sounds of what was said. And sometimes, all this was translated into Latin. Therefore one must not be surprised that names appeared in  various forms.

Laurent HANSY and Marguerite MOURAUX (2nd generation) are a good example of that. Between 1674  and 1688 they baptised their eight children at the church in Bastogne. The church records teach us that by then the name HANSY had already been replaced by DELPERDANGE, but that name was far from being stable. It was the same for the name of his wife, Marguerite MOURAUX.

 Click on the little arrow to open the window below, then on a name to see the correspondent birth certificate.
 

Between 1650 and 1700,  a lot of variants can be found, which all phonetically reproduce the name "DELPERDANGE : D'ELPERDANGE, DELPERDENGE, D'ELPERDANGE, DELPERDANGE, D'ELPERDENGE etc. Moreover, all the combinations  of capital and small letters are met, as can be seen on the certificates.  

It is not until 1700 that the spelling of the name remained  consistent : as from that time onwards, with only a few exceptions, no other variations in the name "DELPERDANGE"are found.

But in a databank, one cannot take into account all variations: everyone has to appear with only one name and a certain consistency has to be kept between the name of the father and that of his children.

Therefore, the following conventions will be used in the following pages:

- Only the patronymic DELPERDANGE is used, the other variances are not taken into account.

- In order to show the gradual change from HANSY towards DELPERDANGE, Henri HANSY (1st generation) will keep the name HANSY,  all his children (2nd generation) will be called HANSY DELPERDANGE. For all the following generations, only the name DELPERDANGE will be used.

- For the names of husbands,wives,godfathers and witnesses, only one variant is used, the variant that emerged and became stable afterwards. As an example, all the  CATLIN, CATTELIN, CATTHELIN, CATTLIN, KATELIN, KATHELIN, KATTELIN and KATTHELIN people will receive the KATHELIN name, the only name which emerged in the modern times.

- The christian names that appeared on the certificates of baptism will be used  during the whole life of a person, even if in other certificates they were omitted or altered.

- All the christian names are used in their modern and  'French' version : Maria will be changed to Marie, Deodatus to Dieudonné, etc.