From: b.scott@csuohio.edu   
      
   On Fri, 26 Jun 2015 15:08:53 -0400, Michelle Bottorff   
    wrote   
   in in   
   rec.arts.sf.composition:   
      
   > Brian M. Scott  wrote:   
      
   >>> Dude. That is one awesome name. Boom as a surname?   
      
   >> It means 'tree'.   
      
   > Is there a connection between that and the nautical term,   
   > or is it pure coincidence?   
      
   Yes, the nautical term is a borrowing of the Dutch word   
    'tree, beam, pole'.  The German cognate is    
   'tree', and the native English cognate is .  Its Old   
   English ancestor  meant 'tree, plank', but the 'tree'   
   sense survives only in a few compound names of specific   
   kinds of tree: hornbeam, quickbeam, whitebeam.  (You may   
   remember the hasty young Ent Quickbeam; the compound   
   basically means 'live tree', the tree apparently enjoying   
   uncommon vitality.)   
      
   >>> But add the rest? Dirk Van Dem Boom.   
      
   >> And  is 'of/from the tree'.   
      
   > Making it roughly equivalent to the french Dubois?   
      
   Very roughly:  is 'forest'.  A more exact Dutch   
   equivalent of  would be <(van) de Bos>, and a more   
   exact French equivalent of  would be   
    (i.e.,  'of/from the tree').   
      
   [...]   
      
   Brian   
   --   
   It was called ‘Birdsong at Eventide’, and it went, ‘Ting   
   _pling_ ting pling _ting_, ting tong, ting tong, ting   
   tonggg clonk, bother!’  At least, that is how it went   
   when Myrtle played it. -- _Larklight_, by Philip Reeve   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)