[teatako]

Originally Posted by henk4

I'll explain.

Andre Citroen was a dutchman who moved to France. The dutch word citroen means lemon. While in France he changed his name to make it look more interesting by putting two dots on the "e" (have no idea how to reproduce that on my keyboard...). So what was basically a two syllabe word, was turned into three syllabes.
We have also a very famous Dutch painter named Karel Appel, yes, his name means "apple" in English...our Dutch surnames were invented during the occupation of the French at the Napoleontic period, when they wanted everybody to have proper surnames. Not everybody took this issue seriously and went to register a silly name......

the fact that the trema (the two dots) change the pronunciation probably had a lot to do as well. oe in french is not the same as oë. the trema separates the vowels, so to speak, as to pronounce both. so it could have been an attempt to have the french pronounce his name properly but i cant confirm as i don´t know a word of dutch. well i just learned "appel"