Van Meter, Van Metre and Van Mater are American surnames derived from the Dutch surname Van Meteren. Most are descendants of Jan Joosten van Meteren who in 1662 settled in Wiltwijck, New Netherlands, now Kingston, New York. The surname is a toponym, meaning "from Meteren" in Gelderland, the Netherlands.
Famous quotes containing the words van and/or meter:
“... two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet the meanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounding utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.”
—William Harmon (b. 1938)