Article taken from De Colve XV – 2010 – Branch Van Santen Kolff

Inger, married to Robert Swaab, has two daughters, Feline and Romée. Her brother Peter nor her sister Saskia have children which could mean that the branch Van Santen Kolff dies out. Inger, Peter and their daughters contemplated to register Feline or Romée as Van Santen Kolff. When they found out that all must have the same name, as long as they are part of one nuclear family, they had to skip this idea. The name Swaab also is important to them all, especially because of their grandmother Swaab, who survived Auschwitz. Once children become of legal age they can still adopt the other family name, but having lived for so long with their fathers’ name it has by then become part of their identity, so any change will be quite difficult. [Ed.: see also Genealogy: Introduction, on Dutch legislation 2001 regarding family names.]

The name Van Santen Kolff, hard be it at times when trying to get the name spelled out correctly in a society that is getting less and less used to double family names – and with that the double ‘ff’, is well known thanks to Jacques (Jacob) van Santen Kolff, art and literature critic, who named the ‘Hague School’. Jacques was an interesting man – he corresponded with Emile Zola, stayed as a guest with Richard Wagner.

Both Inger and her sister are visual artists; Inger only uses Kolff, for that is, as her father always expressed, the major part of the family name; Saskia uses the full name. See: www.reddress.nl and www.ingerkolff.nl for their work.

Inger van Santen Kolff, Amsterdam, februari 2010