One thing I learned from my recent trip to DESY was the proper name for a certain type of electrostatic generator[1].  Like many Brits, I had somehow got it into my head that it was called a Van der Graaf, but in fact it was invented by the American physicist Robert Jemison Van de Graaff.  In order to check this out, I went to Dutch Wikipedia and learned that: 

Robert Jemison Van de Graaff (Tuscaloosa  (Alabama) 20 december 1901  — Boston  (Massachusetts), 16 januari 1967) was een Amerikaans natuurkundige, instrumentmaker en hoogleraar in de natuurkunde aan de Princeton-universiteit. Hij is vooral bekend door zijn uitvinding van een elektrostatische deeltjesversneller, de Van de Graaffgenerator.

 However, this misomer is firmly embedded in the British psyche, as from another page

Van der Graaf Generator is een Britse band, opgericht in 1967 door Chris Judge Smith en Peter Hammill. De naam is ontleend aan de Van de Graaffgenerator (let op de verschillen in spelling!), en werd geopperd door Smith. 

However, I don’t think the band is to blame, but that Smith simply picked up on the prevalent British misunderstanding.
 
These generators are quite formidable.  At Reading we used to have one out the back which could accelerate electrons to 2 MeV, but they could go up to ten times this:

The Nuclear Structure Facility, or NSF at Daresbury Laboratory, was proposed in the 1970s, commissioned in 1981 and opened for experiments in 1983. It consisted of a tandem Van de Graaff operating routinely at 20 MV, housed in a distinctive building 70 metres high. During its lifetime it accelerated 80 different ion beams for experimental use, ranging from protons to uranium. A particular feature was the ability to accelerate rare isotopic and radioactive beams. Perhaps the most important discovery made on the NSF was that of super-deformed nuclei. These nuclei, when formed from the fusion of lighter elements, rotate very rapidly. The pattern of gamma-rays emitted as they slow down provided detailed information about the inner structure of the nucleus. Following financial cutbacks, the NSF closed in 1993.

Picture: The Daresbury tower housed the Van de Graaff generator for the NSF.
 
But these ‘van’ names are a bit confusing.  There are van de-s, van der-s, and van den-s.  The name of the famous Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff (1852 – 1911) I can cope with, because the ’t refers to the neuter gender.  I would guess that the ‘der’ and ‘den’ forms of the common (masculine and feminine) article are from an earlier inflected stage of the language, frozen in personal and place names, but I would be glad if anyone could confirm or refute this.
 
 [1] An interesting history of these machines is to be found on http://www.hp-gramatke.net/history/english/page4000.htm