infocus #68 December 2022 Seeing what Leeuwenhoek saw

10.22443/rms.inf.1.240

Even his name is controversial: he was christened Thonis, not Antony, and many people still spell his name Antoni though Leeuwenhoek’s biographer Clifford Dobell pointed out in 1932 that the spelling in Dutch Antonij can be rendered only as Antony in English. American scholars invented Anton, a convention unknown in Europe, and Antonie – not a name he’d have recognised – occurs in numerous standard sources, including Wikipedia, the Science Museum, and even Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is said that Leeuwenhoek himself decided to add ‘van’ to give his name higher social status, though his uncle was using van Leeuwenhoek as the family surname back in 1628.