I don’t follow the European stock markets but from time to time see and hear them referred to as a Bourse. Ever wonder where that term comes from? Googling doesn’t easily provide an answer.
![](https://www.lunarmobiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Bourse-on-Wikipedia-1024x756.png)
Turns out it’s a family name. The real story is related to the true stories of the original stock markets trading under a tree in a square or on a street. Turns out stock markets were not invented in Amsterdam or London, but began hundreds of years earlier in Bruges, which today is in Belgium.
![](https://www.lunarmobiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/bruges-bourse.png)
And specifically in the 14th Century, in the Beursplein, a open-air square in town. But only when the weather was nice. When it rained, trading moved indoors to Ter Beurse Inn (established in 1285), a coffee house owned by the van der Beurse family, a prominent Flemish family.
Beurse became Bourse and stock markets grew to be large enough to operate in their own buildings, rather than coffee houses.