DutchLatin1 syllable
Meaning: from the Roman family name Antonius, of uncertain sense.
Teun
Teun is what Dutch did to Antonius from the front: take a Roman family name, cut off the head, keep the middle.
| Origin | Dutch — short form of Teunis, itself from Latin Antonius (see Anthony) |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Antonius is a Roman clan name of uncertain, probably Etruscan origin. The gloss priceless is a late guess, borrowed from Greek anthos, flower |
| Pronunciation | TUHN — one syllable. The eu is a rounded front vowel English lacks: the vowel of fern with the lips pushed forward, as in French peu |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100; an old Dutch name that returned on the short-form wave |
| Variants | Teunis, Theunis, Antoon, Anton, Antonius, Anthony |
| Nicknames | Teuntje — which in the Netherlands also stands alone as a girl's name |
| Diminutive | Dutch attaches -tje to almost anything; Teuntje is Teun made small and fond |
History & meaning
Antonius was a Roman clan name — the family of Mark Antony, one of the great patrician houses — and like most clan names its origin is lost. Latin scholarship generally takes it as Etruscan and leaves it there. The familiar gloss priceless or inestimable has no ancient support whatever: it grew out of a later association with Greek anthos, flower, which is also where the silent h in English Anthony came from. Saint Anthony of Padua carried the name into every Catholic country in Europe. The Low Countries took it as Antonius, softened it to Anthonie and Teunis, and finally shortened it to Teun.
Dutch has a diminutive suffix it will attach to almost anything: -je, appearing as -tje, -pje, -kje or -etje depending on the sound in front of it. A huis is a house and a huisje is a small one; a boom is a tree and a boompje a sapling. Grammatically the diminutive is always neuter, so a de word becomes a het word the moment it shrinks. Put on a name, the suffix is not about size but about warmth — Teuntje, Jantje, Daantje, Keesje are what a grandmother says. Several of these hardened into names in their own right and a good number landed on the girls' side of the register, Teuntje among them. That is worth knowing before you deploy it as a pet form abroad.
Why parents choose it
In Dutch, Teun is a village-and-farmyard name that came back sounding fresh: plain, warm, entirely without cleverness. For an English speaker the vowel decides it. Dutch has three vowel sounds English simply does not have — the eu of Teun, the uu of Guus, and the ui of huis, which is near nothing in English at all. Most English speakers reach for TUNE or TOON and neither is right, though TUHN with rounded lips gets you most of the way there.
Middle names for Teun
Teun ends open, so a middle name that starts on a consonant keeps the seam between them audible: Teun Bastiaan, Teun Frederick, Teun Casper, Teun Matthias. The middle names guide has the general rule.
Famous Teuns
Teun de Nooijer is one of the most decorated field hockey players who ever lived, with Olympic gold in 1996 and 2000 and well over 400 caps for the Netherlands. The midfielder Teun Koopmeiners captained AZ Alkmaar in his early twenties before moving to Italy, and plays for the Dutch national team. The photojournalist Teun Voeten has reported from war zones for three decades and written about them as an anthropologist.
Consider instead
Anthony is the full inheritance, saint and all, with no vowel problem. Koen is the same length and the same Dutch register, and its meaning is transparent rather than lost. Rens shortens Laurens by the identical trick and is the easiest of the three to say cold.