Dick Blok

Dirk Peter "Dick" Blok (7 January 1925 – 6 February 2019) was a Dutch scholar of onomastics. He was director of the Meertens Institute between 1965 and 1986. He succeeded founding director Piet Meertens. In 1979, during Blok's rule as director, the Institute was named after Meertens. Blok fictionally featured in the book cycle by J. J. Voskuil, which was based on figures at the Meertens Institute, where Voskuil worked as well. Blok had a long teaching career at the University of Amsterdam on the topic of settlement history related to the onomastics of place names, first a teaching assignment from 1967 to 1976, and subsequently as extraordinary lector (1976–1980), extraordinary professor (1980–1986) and finally as full professor from 1986 to 1990, when he took up emeritus status.

Blok was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984.