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Help[Facts] Goulden
I'm Bob Goulden from the UK. My Grandfather did some digging at one point, and traced our family back to some Dutch heritage, at which point our name was Van-Goudlen. Other Goulden's ive talked to claim it is french, but then back in the 2nd world war, there was a lot of boarder hopping, and the actual origins for some families may have been lost or forgotten. Beyond that, i have no idea.
Personally i like the name 'Bob Van-Goulden', i may change it back one day :P
Personally i like the name 'Bob Van-Goulden', i may change it back one day :P
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in your case it seems Dutch. The van part shows that. In most cases, when it isn't followed by de / den / der , it means the surname is a toponym, meaning your ancestor is from a certain place. i think this is the case. i suspected goulden was probably a reference for the Dutch city Gouda (famous for its cheese). so, i checked its history and found out that one of its earlier names was Golda, which consists of gold and a . The first component has the same meaning as the English gold and the second component means 'water'. Golda is actually the name of a river and the city Gouda was built on the banks of this river. The river's name now is Gouwe and the city's name is Gouda. This is probably the story behind your surname, although it might just mean 'from gold, golden', but according the site of the Meertens Instituut (about Dutch surnames) there are now such surnames as Van Gouden and Van Gouwe, which there reasonably should be in that case. But, the surname Van Gouda isn't there as well, although there is the surname Gouda listed.
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You might have more luck getting information on your surname at Behind the Name's message board for surnames:
http://surnames.behindthename.com/surboard.html
:-)
http://surnames.behindthename.com/surboard.html
:-)
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