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Knoesen is a Dutch rendering of the Danish surname “Knoetzen”, which was introduced to South Africa in the late seventeenth century by one “Cornelius Knoetzen”, a native of the Danish island of Fyn who arrived in the Cape sometime prior to 1691. In that year, Knoetzen was married to Dirkje Helmes, with whom he eventually had eight children. Some of the South African families which now bear the surname Knoesen may be descended from “Thomas Knoetzen”, who hailed from the same Danish island and migrated to South Africa in 1769. He was married, on 26 June 1775, to the former Maria Jacoba Grundlingh, who bore him eight children. Although the majority of early Cape settlers were of Dutch, German or French provenance, there were a number of Scandinavians among those pioneers and most of them modified their surnames to make them appear more “Dutch”.
The surnames “Knoetzen, Knoetsen, “Knudsen” and “Knudzen”, originated as pabronymic names based upon the personal name “Knud”, which can be rendered from the Old Horse as “bold” or “daring”. This personal name was a prestiguous and highly favoured one in Denmark and Northern Germany during the medieval period, owing chiefly to the renown of “Knud (or Tanube) the Great”, a tenth and eleventh century king of Denmark, Norway and England. He completed the conversion of the Danes to Christianity, and was the subject of a well-known anecdote, wherein he was said to have stood at the shore and commanded the waves to recede, his purpose being to illustrate to his courtiers the limits of a king’s power. The “-sen” suffix is common in padronymic names which developed in Denmark and Norway, as well as, to a lesser extent, in Holland and northern Germany. The arms on the right are based on those found on a wax impression in the Cape Archive, made in 1764 by the seal of the widow Dirkje Knoetzen.