Member of DeVries Family Attempts to Make It Big in the Music Biz...Yes, that's Michael on the drums in this video!

Ma'am, That's Capital D - as in Delta, little E - as in Echo, Capital V - as in Victory, R, I, E, S.....

Now, what about the Dutch?

There are three terms we need to define: Holland, the Netherlands, and Dutch. In Old English dutch simply meant “people or nation.” (This also explains why Germany is called Deutschland in German.)

Over time, English-speaking people used the word Dutch to describe people from both the Netherlands and Germany. (At that point in time, in the early 1500s, the Netherlands and parts of Germany, along with Belgium and Luxembourg, were all part of the Holy Roman Empire.)

Specifically the phrase “High Dutch” referred to people from the mountainous area of what is now southern Germany. “Low Dutch” referred to people from the flatlands in what is now the Netherlands.

Within the Holy Roman Empire, the word “Netherlands” was used to describe people from the low-lying (nether) region (land).The term was so widely used that when they became a formal, separate country in 1815, they became the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The word “Holland” literally meant “wood-land” in Old English and originally referred to people from the northern region of the Netherlands. Over time, it came to apply to the entire country.

The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany.

They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia, that was a part of Denmark until 1864. They inhabit an area known as Frisia. 

The Frisian languages are still used by 500,000 speakers; dialects of Frisian arerecognized as official languages in both the Netherlands and Germany.

De Vries is one of the most common Dutch surnames.[1]It indicates a geographical origin: "Vriesland" is an old spelling of the Dutchprovince of Friesland (Frisia).

Hence, "De Vries" means "The Frisian". The name has been transcended abroad to "DeVries", "deVries", or "Devries".

Sooo, the surname DeVRIES means "the Frisian" and is a descriptive surname signifying that the individual or his family came from the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Friesland's language and culture is more closely related to that of the English, as they both had the same Anglo-Saxon ancestors. In Europe, the Frisian ethnic group primarily lives in the provinces of Friesland and Groningen in the Netherlands and also in the region of Ostfriesland and district of Nordfriesland in Germany.

Viking refers to the Norse (Scandinavian) people, famous as explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates, who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late 8th to the early 11th century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansion is known as the Viking Age, and forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles and Europe in general. While Vikings have traditionally been seen as no more than violent, acquisitive heathens, in more modern times they have sometimes been portrayed in a more heroic light. However, the consensus among modern historians is that they can also be seen as aspirational, adventurous peoples, with ingenuity in ship and town construction, and a proficiency as seafarers and traders to match.



The eldest runestones, inscribed with Norse runes, date from the 4th century. These were the Elder Futhark runes. However, the most of the runestones were created during the late Viking Age and thus inscribed with theYounger Futhark runes. The runestones with Norse runes were usually erected to commemorate one or several deceased kinsmen, and in most cases these people died at home peacefully. Usually, men raised or commanded raising a runestone, while some of them are raised by women, usually widows of the deceased. It is believed that runestones were brightly colored. Nowadays, most of them are painted with falu red, Swedish deep red paint known for its use on wooden cottages and barns. The vast majority of the Norse runestones are located in Scandinavia, but they can be found at all places reached by the Norsemen during the Viking Age: from the Isle of Man to Berezan’ in the Black Sea region. It is interesting, however, that not a single runestone is known to be found in Iceland. Runestones were erected at assembly locations, near roads, bridges and fords. Norse Runestones marked territory, explained inheritance, and told about important events. They remain one of the most striking traces left from the Viking Age.