Nobiliary particle

A nobiliary particle is a type of onomastic particle used within a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal that a family belongs to the nobility. Which particle is used varies by country, language and period, and in some languages the nobiliary particle is identical in form to an ordinary prepositional particle already present in many surnames, sometimes producing ambiguity where no distinguishing spelling convention arose; the particle can often be dropped in everyday speech or in certain contexts. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/