Today

So how many Bustraans are there? Not many, it appears. The 1947 Dutch census found 69 instances of the surname Bustraan, with 37 occurrences in Zeeland (compare this to the 54,955 occurrences of the most common name, De Jong). The familienaam.nl site, using a 1998 database, identified 33 occurrences of the name in the Netherlands (see the map below). A recent check of the Nationale Telefoongids shows 51 Bustraans with telephone listings, with 30 of them in Zeeland. Back in America I’ve found about 45 telephone listings associated with the surname, with Michigan topping the chart with 22 entries.

Full disclosure. Although this website initially started to be about the Bustraan name, it should be noted that the familienaam.nl and familienaam.be sites show that between Belgium and the Netherlands, the most prevalent related surname is Butstraen. We Bustraans are a minority even within our own family.

These sites report 106 instances of Butstraen in Belgium and 33 instances of Bustraan in the Netherlands. There are 25 occurences of Butseraen in Belgium and 16 Bustraens in Belgium.Rik Butstraen shows that 86 Butstraens were born in France between 1966 and 1990, mostly in the two northern French Flanders départements of Pas de Calais and Nord.