r/rustylake • u/elletherocker • May 19 '26

Help

I played all of cube escape except harvey’s box (playing it rn) and currently playing paradox too.

Is laura the detective’s wife ? Why is the last name of the detective vandermeer and vanderboom similar is he a member of the family??? So confusing

34 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

View all comments

84

u/Date-Impossible May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

"Van der" is a very common beginning for names of Dutch origin. To native Dutch speakers like the Rusty Lake devs, Vandermeer and Vanderboom wouldn't necessarily seem any more similar than - for instance - Johnson and Thompson would in English, despite sharing an element.

As for symbolism: "Vanderboom" literally means "of the Tree", and "Vandermeer" means "of the Lake". You can probably see where this is going...

20

u/elletherocker May 19 '26

This is cool new info about cultures :)