May 31, 2026
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Frisian Names, Global Stories
Uncover how Dutch surnames travelled from windswept Friesland to shape families across the world.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
If you walk through Haarlem early on a weekday morning, you can still feel the rhythm of a 17th-century town that never quite left. Coffee at a canal-side café, a short cycle to the old centre, a pause at a bookshop that’s been in the same family for three generations. The Dutch don’t advertise this. They just live it.
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Dutch Surnames of Friesland: Origins and Meanings
- At The Café — Café Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
- Around The Web — Volendam Day Trip from Amsterdam: The Complete Guide, Dutch Surnames of North Holland: Origins and Meanings, Amsterdam Canal Cruise: A Complete Guide to Choosing and Booking + more
- From Love Netherlands — Volendam Day Trip from Amsterdam: The Complete Guide
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Speculaas — The Spiced Biscuit That Smells Like Christmas
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Dutch Surnames of Friesland: Origins and Meanings
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Friesland is one of the most distinctive provinces in the Netherlands. The Frisian people have their own language, their own traditions, and their own surnames. If your family name ends in -stra , -ma , or -sma , you may carry Dutch surnames Friesland families have passed down for centuries. These names are unlike anything found in South Holland or North Holland. They tell a story of marshy farmland, Viking heritage, and a people who refused to lose their identity. Dutch surnames were not fixed until 1811. Before that, most Frisians used patronymics. A son of Jan became Jansen. A son of Pieter became Pietersen. When Napoleon required all Dutch citizens to register a fixed family name, Frisian families chose names based on their farm, their trade, or their village. The result is a set of surnames found almost nowhere else on earth. This guide covers the most common Dutch surnames from…
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Have you been there? Do you have a memory of this corner of the Netherlands? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to hear your story.
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At The Café
Café Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
Café Hoppe on the Spui has been pouring beer since 1670 — long enough that the wooden floor has sunk slightly at the door from three and a half centuries of footfall. It’s the kind of place where the bartender knows the regulars’ orders, the tourists get treated exactly the same as the locals, and the bitterballen come out exactly hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth if you don’t wait. It sits right in the middle of the city, a few minutes’ walk from the Dam, and it’s one of the last genuinely authentic brown cafés you can still find without trying. Come in the late afternoon, sit outside on the pavement, and order a beer.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Just 20 kilometres north of Amsterdam, the fishing village of Volendam has been drawing visitors for well over a century. A Volendam day trip from Amsterdam is one of the easiest and most rewarding excursions you can make during any visit to the Netherlands. Within an hour of leaving the city, you’ll find yourself on a harbour lined with painted wooden houses, eating smoked eel straight from the stalls, and watching the world drift by on the…
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Photo: Shutterstock
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Speculaas — The Spiced Biscuit That Smells Like Christmas
Speculaas is a thin, crisp biscuit pressed with a wooden mould into intricate patterns — windmills, ships, faces from old folktales — and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, white pepper and cardamom. It’s eaten year-round but reaches its peak in early December when bakeries make whole speculaaspoppen the size of your forearm. The big windmill-shaped biscuits show up free on saucers at every café from October onwards. A good speculaas should snap cleanly between your fingers and release the warm spice smell before you’ve even raised it to your mouth.
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