Mariëlle, what are these funny dots in your name?
These dots are called a trema, or diacritic (see
here for more info) and are used to indicate that the combination
"ie" should be pronounced as two seperate letters.
In Dutch, one normally pronounces the "ie" is as a
single letter, as in the English word "belief." With the trema, the
pronounciation becomes "ie-e" (ie as is belief, e as in else).
Compare this to the word coöperate, where the trema reminds one
of the fact the pronounciation is co-operate.
A trema should not be confused with the German umlaut, which is
used to change the pronounciation of a letter.
Thus, the pronounciation of Mariëlle becomes Mari-yelleh.
To typeset my name in LaTeX , write Mari\"elle and
in html it is Mariëlle
Stoelinga, how do I pronounce your surname?
As Stoolinga. The Dutch "oe" corresponds to the English "oo". Some
examples: boek/book, koel/cool, koekje/cookie.
Stoel means chair in Dutch and is related to the English word stool.