USAGE: surname prefixes

Just a little research into the use of surname prefixes (as in: de Gaulle,
van der Planck, di Montezemulo, etc) in European natlangs and naturalistic
conlangs.

To the L1 speaker of French, is there a semantic difference between, say,
"de Something", "de la Something", "la Something" and just "Something" in
someone's name? And is there a good reason why someone might have the name
"van der Planck" and another simply "Planck"?

Do such prefixes tend to follow any pattern? For instance:
de la, du    describing features
de           geogr. origin
la, le       occupation

I'm curious as to which prefixes are so used in natlangs or your conlangs
(although I exclude things meaning "son of" etc in this study), and how they
are used. This is because I'm considering the finer points of surname
prefixes in Jameldic names, as in my own loan-translated name "te Kraamlep".

I can use "te" (the), "ete" (of the) and "ot" (out of, from), and I'm
tempted to also permit the now-archaic and -dialectal case forms of "the" as
relics: "et" (the-NEUT-NOM/ACC/DAT), "ewt" (of the-NEUT), "tem/ter/ten"
(various cases of "the"). Such things tend to survive in names long after
their use has generally died out, _hein?_

Your input will be much welcome and gratefully received.

James

 =========================================================================
james@zolid.com  James Campbell  Zeugma--Our Life Is Design  www.zolid.com
 =========================================================================