Dutch name lived, by the suffix -ma or -stra ( of Frisian), or -ing or -ink (of Low Saxon origin). Examples: Dijkstra (after a dyke near the place they came from); Halbertsma ( after an ancestor called Halbert); Wiebing ( after an ancestor called Wiebe); Hesselink ( after an ancestor called Hessel). After 1811, many patronymics became permanent surnames such that Peeters, Jansen, Willems are common surnames today. The most common Dutch surnames in the Netherlands (as of 1947) and Flanders in Belgium are listed to the right. Meertens' Dutch surname database lists 94143 different family names; the total Dutch speaking population
History of the Netherlands of Spain took strong measures against Protestantism, which polarised the peoples of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. The subsequent Dutch revolt led to splitting the Burgundian Netherlands into a Catholic French and Dutch-speaking "Spanish Netherlands" (approximately corresponding to modern Belgium and Luxembourg), and a northern "United Provinces", which spoke Dutch and were predominantly Protestant with a Catholic minority. It became the modern Netherlands. In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences. A rich worldwide Dutch empire developed and the Dutch East India Company became one