Johannes Goropius Becanus

As was the fashion of the time, Gerartsen adopted a Latinized surname based on the name of his birthplace, Goropius being rendered from "Van Gorp"' and Becanus referring to "Hilvarenbeek."

Since Brabantic has a higher number of short words than do Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, Goropius reasoned that it was the older language.

[citation needed] In spite of his extensive travels in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Britain, Goropius remained attached to his homeland, and reported on various curiosities and customs from his native region.

He also reports that Ters, a deity who seems to have been an equivalent of Priapus, was invoked by Antwerpian women when they were taken by surprise or sudden fear, and that there was a house in Antwerp adjoining the prison of Het Steen that bore a statue which had been furnished with a large worn away phallus.

Though Goropius had admirers (among them Abraham Ortelius and Richard Hakluyt), his etymologies have been considered "linguistic chauvinism," and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz coined the French word goropiser,[1] meaning "to come up with absurd etymologies", in his work Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (New Essays on Human Understanding; written 1704, published 1765).