Spelling of the Voorhees Name Not a Consistent Art

By Bob Voorhees

Judith Van Voorhis, Van Voorhees Association computer resource, was kind enough to sort Flo Christoph’s total Van Voorhees database of 56,614 surnames by name. This would include all the names in Volume 1 (first 6 generations plus the children of 6), Volume 2 (7^th and 8^th generations plus the children of 8), and later generations where the information is available and entered into the database. The following data and observations are not meant as a scientific study but rather present an interesting generalized look at the database when sorted by surname. For example, we know for sure that many of the Voorhees names are repeated more than once and counted more than once.

In this data base 21,940 names or 39% are Voorhees name variations and 34,674 or 61% are other names—over 8,500 different surnames other than Voorhees. Of the Voorhees name variations, 15% retain the Van in front of and part of the surname. In the data presented below, the names with the Van have been added to the names without the Van.