De Bavelaar
Niels Glasbergen has been working in production at Retail Flowers for a year, where he is also known as ‘de Bavelaar’.
“The origin of this name goes back many generations. My grandfather’s grandfather had a neighbor called ‘de Bavelaar’. He was the only Bavelaar in the village. Because the name ‘Glasbergen’ was much more common, my grandfather’s grandfather was automatically called ‘the Glasbergen from next to the Bavelaar’. Later it was abbreviated to ‘de Bavelaar’. So my family and I go through life with this nickname!”
Mouse
Patrick van der Meij is a salesperson at Greenflor. Many colleagues have it as ‘Mouse’ in their phone.
“You didn’t have that many different surnames in Rijnsburg in the past. Because many families had the same name, you often did not know who it was. Just check how many families De Mooij, Van der Meij and Heemskerk you know. That is why my grandfather was called ‘Mouse’, so that they immediately knew that it was one of Van der Meij’s. They have been calling me that ever since!”
Mart Pinda
Mart van den Oever works at Bries aan Zee and ‘inherited’ the nickname Pinda from his father.
“Every family I used to visit knew my father as ‘Peanut’, which is why everyone started calling me that. I never got over it. For years I worked every summer in France at a surf camp. Here me and a friend introduced ourselves as Peanut and Pistachio. Eventually people did ask for my own name. I had one time that all our guests at the end of the week still didn’t know my name is Mart.”
