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Vandecasteele

Vandecasteele. Attested in Belgium, France, United States of America, borne by about 3,440 people in the registers this map holds.

The same name, spelt two ways

One systematic substitution — s for z, w for v, ch for h — where BOTH spellings are independently attested surnames. Kosina and Kozina are one man in two clerks' handwriting. Stronger than sounding alike, weaker than somebody having checked.

Vandekasteele

Where it came from

No place of this name is in the gazetteer, so this map says nothing about where the name came from. Search a surname anywhere else and you will be told an origin — that it is Latin, or Italian, or means «joyful». That is etymology, it is usually unsourced, and it is a different question from the one answered here.

Where it is borne, and where a record names it

Attested in 3 countries: Belgium, France, United States of AmericaUnited States of America — 111 peopleFrance — 1,104 peopleBelgium — 2,225 people
A dot is a country, not a place. It sits at the country's centre because a national register counts a country; nothing here says where in it these people are. Blank is not absence. This draws the 3 countries where the eleven registers and eight archives behind this atlas attest the name. Most of the world has no surname register this project can read, and the ones that do and will not are listed with the reason.
Belgium, by commune. 2,225 people in 102 of Belgium's 565 communes, counted by Statbel. The biggest is Kortrijk with 143. This is the only country here that can be drawn this way — every other register counts a country and stops, so a blank elsewhere is a gap in what states publish, not in the name.
102 places drawn, the largest being Kortrijk, Roeselare, Oostende, Gent, Brugge, Moeskroen, Harelbeke, Koekelare, Menen, WevelgemAnzegem — 16Poperinge — 16Houthulst — 16Knokke-Heist — 16Wingene — 18Damme — 18Estaimpuis — 19Lichtervelde — 20Tielt — 23Veurne — 24Koksijde — 24Deinze — 26Zonnebeke — 26Bredene — 27Oudenburg — 28Kortemark — 28Zedelgem — 29Oostkamp — 30Gistel — 32Antwerpen — 32Ingelmunster — 33Torhout — 34Izegem — 35Aalter — 36Diksmuide — 36Zwevegem — 37Ieper — 39Ichtegem — 42Wervik — 42Jabbeke — 42Wevelgem — 47Menen — 53Koekelare — 55Harelbeke — 60Moeskroen — 69Brugge — 74Gent — 85Oostende — 101Roeselare — 106Kortrijk — 143

Country by country

Each country below can carry up to three different kinds of evidence, and none of them is the same claim. A register is a head-count — a state counted these people. A record is one document naming the surname on that ground, narrower evidence and often much older. And a volume overlapping these dates is a document from the right place and years — never a document known to name this surname. None of the three ever means the name exists in that country and nowhere else, or that it exists nowhere but here.

Belgium

2,225 Borne — a state counted them — Family names by municipality, 1 January 2026 (Statbel, TA_POP_LST_2026).

Whose archive to write to

3,016 of 24,426 volumes held for Belgium overlap the 1800s, 1920s and 1980s — the decades Vandecasteele is attested here. Too many to list, and this atlas does not know whether any one of them names Vandecasteele. The commonest kinds: Civil registration and vital records, Cemeteries and burials, Church and parish registers, Censuses and population lists. See everything this atlas holds for Belgium →

France

1,104 Borne — a state counted them — Fichier des noms de famille 1891–2000 (INSEE, fichier national).

Whose archive to write to
Attested here, and nothing that survives covers those years

Vandecasteele is attested in France in the 1960s. Not one of the 1,513 volumes this atlas holds for France covers those years — worth knowing before an afternoon is spent on France's shelf rather than after.

United States of America

111 Borne — a state counted them — Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census.

Whose archive to write to

21,685 of 528,875 volumes held for United States of America overlap the 2000s — the decades Vandecasteele is attested here. Too many to list, and this atlas does not know whether any one of them names Vandecasteele. The commonest kinds: Civil registration and vital records, Church and parish registers, Cemeteries and burials, Probate, land and notarial. See everything this atlas holds for United States of America →

When it was being born, in France

INSEE counts births by surname and decade from the état civil, 1891 to 2000 — the only dated evidence in this dataset. A name that starts at zero and climbs arrived; a name that falls to nothing left, died out, or emigrated, and the decade it stops is the decade to stop searching. It counts births registered in France, so a family that emigrated in 1900 simply stops appearing, which is information rather than a defect.

  • 1891–1900 68
  • 1901–1910 48
  • 1911–1920 85
  • 1921–1930 89
  • 1931–1940 82
  • 1941–1950 136
  • 1951–1960 127
  • 1961–1970 122
  • 1971–1980 116
  • 1981–1990 107
  • 1991–2000 124

Whose archive held that ground, and when

Every surname site can tell you a name is common somewhere. This one also knows which filing system held that ground in which years — and those are the two halves of one question: my people were called this, they were there, so who has the paper, and for which century. A name in Croatia before 1881 may sit in a military series and not a county one; a name in the Netherlands before 1811 has no civil record at all, only a baptism.

This is about the ground, not about your family. A register counting a name in a country says nothing about which village. And these are the pieces of a country this atlas has drawn, which in a large one may be a corner of it — Acadia reaches into Maine and is not a statement about the United States, and Bohemia's ground crosses into Poland. Each region's own page says which ground it covers. Where a country is missing below, nothing covers it yet.

Belgium
France
United States of America

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