[Note: Mr. Grajewski's original note, asking about his surname, was in Polish. My answer, in Polish, is followed by a translation in English.]

Szanowny Panie Grajewski! Nazwiska na -ewski i -owski zwykle wskazuja na zwiazanie z nazwami miejscowosci, wiec Grajewski prawdopodobnie znaczy "osoba lub rodzina pochodzaca z Grajewa lub Grajowa" -- z miasta "Grajewo" w woj. lomzynskim, lub ze wsi "Grajewo" w woj. suwalskim, moze byc takze "Grajow" w woj. krakowskim. Jest takze mozliwe, ze inne miejscowosci istnieja lub kiedys istnialy, z nazw ktorych to nazwisko moze pochodzic, ale takich nie znalazlem w atlasie. Polski uczony dr. hab. Kazimierz Rymut pisze w Nazwach miast Polski, ze nazwa miasta Grajewa w woj. lomzynskim pochodzi z nazwy jeziora, nad ktorym miasto powstalo. Ta nazwa byla staropruskiego pochodzenia, a Polacy przejeli ja w formie "Grajwo, Grajewo" (1577 r.).

W 1990 r. bylo 2,756 polskich obywatele o nazwisku Grajewski. Mieszkali w nieomal wszystkich wojewodztwach, z wiekszymi liczbami w tych woj.: warszaw. 107, bialostock. 119, bydgosk. 260, gdansk. 210, katowic. 110, poznan. 288, suwal. 313, torun. 189, i wroclaw. 98. -- Z tego wynika, ze to nazwiska wystepuje rzadziej w Malopolsce, a czesto w innych czesciach Rzeczypospolitej.

[English translation:]

Dear Mr. Grajewski,!

Names ending in -ewski and -owski generally indicate a connection with the names of localities, so Grajewski probably means "person or family from Grajewo or Grajów" ? from the town of Grajewo in Łomża province, or from the village Grajewo in Suwalko province, possibly also Grajów in Krakow province. It is also possible that other places exist or once existed from whose names this surname could derive, but I found none in the atlas. The Polish scholar Prof. Kazimierz Rymut wrote in Nazwy miast Polski that the name of the town of Grajewo in Łomża province comes from the name of the lake on which the town developed. That name was of Old Prussian origin, and Poles transformed it into the forms "Grajwo, Grajewo" (1577).

In 1990 there were 2,756 Polish citizens named Grajewski. They lived in almost all provinces, with the largest numbers in those of Warsaw (107), Białystok (119), Bydgoszcz (260), Gdansk (210), Katowice (110), Poznan (288), Suwałki (313), Torun (189), and Wroclaw (98). From this it appears that this name appears more rarely in Malopolska and more often in the other parts of the Republic.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I saw your message on the Polish Genealogical site. If you have the time I need some help. Our family name is Wojton. My father emigrated from Poland around 1922-24 from a town/village called Janow. The problem is I don't know what province. Mapquest shows 20 "Janow" listings in present day Poland. I thought that maybe you might be kind enough to tell from the surname where I should focus my search. I thank you in advance for your help.

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to help at all -- so often with Polish surnames there is no real clue to the specific area they came from, and as you've discovered, there are lots of Janow's. But I looked up the name, and there is some info that might be helpful. Here's the distribution by province for the 428 Wojton's living in Poland as of 1990:

Wojton 428: Bydgoszcz 5, Czestochowa 3, Gdansk 10, Jelenia Gora 6, Kaliz 2, Katowice 32, Kielce 190, Krakow 5, Krosno 3, Legnica 7, Lodz 6, Olsztyn 13, Opole 6, Pila 7, Piotrkow 10, Płock 13, Przemysl 4, Radom 6, Rzeszow 66, Sieradz 2, Skierniewice 1, Slupsk 1, Szczecin 3, Tarnow 6, Walbrzych 7, Wloclawek 9, Wroclaw 5.

Obviously you may be unlucky and your Wojton's might have come from one of those provinces with only 2 or 3 -- but if you play the odds, it seems the most likely place to start is Kielce province. With 190 of the 428 Wojton's (almost half), chances are reasonably good that's where your Wojton's came from. I notice there are at least 2 Janow's in Kielce province, but at least searching them might be a manageable job... If you have no luck there, Rzeszow province, with 66, seems like the next place to try.

I wish this data could have simplified your task a lot more, but at least it might be some help. Now you know focusing on a Janow in Kielce province is more likely to pay off than looking in, say, Tarnow province. You still may have a lot of work to do, but I hope maybe this will save you some trouble.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.



 

... Thanks so much, William, for your translations of my ancestral surnames. I just recently ordered your book from the PGS. I also thank you for listing some village names that I will definitely look into to see if great-great- greats came from perhaps these other villages.

I'm glad my info helped, and I hope you find the book even more helpful. I like the idea of the book and Web page because they complement each other. In the book I didn't have room for a lot of info on individual names, so I discussed background info at length; on-line I don't have time for a lot of background info but I can discuss individual names in more depth. Put them together and I think you have a pretty good source of information... As for the villages, they are crucial -- Slavic names seldom contain enough info in them to tell you exactly where they originated, but if you can match them up with a specific area, your chances of hitting paydirt are much better.

Could you possible look at two other surnames? They are: Levitsky...

The name Lev/Lew is definitely part of the picture. Actually the name Levistky could get started several ways, but the most likely way in most cases is this: a fellow named Lev has sons, who are called Levichi or Levitsy (the suffix just meaning "son of"), and then places associated with them end up being called Levichi or Leviche or Levitsy or Levitse, then people who come from there are called Levitsky (Polish spelling Lewicki). So usually Levitsky would break down as meaning "person associated with or coming from the place of Lev's son." It wouldn't have anything to do with the city of Lviv, in fact most likely you're looking for a village named Levitsy, Levitse, something like that.

... 2. Brutka (Ukrainian surname) from Strilbychi, Ukraine. My cousins pronounce it : Brit-ka (first syllable is stressed and has a short i sound). I dont know its original Cyrillic spelling, but it would have to be pronounced either: Britka or Brutka (Broot - ka).

I can't find anything under the Brut- root. There is a Ukrainian root that would be rendered bryt- in the Roman alphabet, meaning "shave, shaved" -- in Cyrillic it looks like this:  БРИТ-

Names from this root would be pronounced with a short i sound and stress on the first syllable. It seems plausible this root could be related to the name, "Brytka" may have originated as a nickname given to a person who was clean-shaven -- that would set him apart, which is how nicknames got started -- and eventually the nickname might have stuck as a family name... Anyway, that's the only thing I can find that appears likely to be relevant.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Interested in any information on the surname Wozniak. It was my paternal g-grandmother's maiden name.

This is a very common name in Polish, as of 1990 there were 81,390 Poles named Woźniak. The root is woz, wagon, cart, and woźniak is a term meaning "saddle horse." This surname would probably be much like "Carter" in English, referring to a fellow who drove a cart. It might also be connected to woźny, a court crier or beadle, but in most cases I expect it's linked to the meaning "carter."

... Do you have any information on Dygton?. I am not absolutely positive of the spelling. It appears to be one of my paternal g-grandmothers. I think she was from Tarnow.

There was no record of anyone by that name in Poland in 1990, and I must say it doesn't even look "right" to me -- I have to suspect the spelling has been mangled. If the spelling's right, none of my sources give any info on the name.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...If you would be so kind i would like information on the surname "Strzelecki..."

As for the name Strzelecki, in 1990 there were 11,467 Polish citizens by that name; they lived all over the country, with some of the larger numbers appearing in the provinces of Warsaw (1,061), Bydgoszcz (540), Katowice (620), Kielce (539), Lodz (714), Poznan (476), Radom (473), Torun (583), and Wloclawek (607) -- in other words, the name appears to be fairly evenly distributed, with no obvious concentration in any one part of the country.

The root this name derives from is strzelec, "shooter, marksman," referring to someone who shoots a gun or, in older times, a bow and arrow. The name Strzelecki could come directly from this noun, thus meaning "[person or kin] of a marksman." Also, there are a some 20 or more villages named Strzelce and at least one Strzelec, and the name could also refer to an association with those places, thus "person or family from Strzelce or Strzelec." So this name probably arose independently in many different places, thus there is no such thing as one Strzelecki family -- the name is borne by many separate families, coming from different parts of Poland.

Common names such as this present their own problems -- it's not hard finding Strzelecki's, but you can't assume they're related to your ancestors; rare names have different problems -- it's hard to find info on them, but if you do, chances are they are relatives. Some Strzelecki's may be of noble descent, since surnames taken from place names originated when nobles took a last name from the name of the estates they owned; but in other cases Strzelecki's are probably descendants of peasants who worked on those estates. Only detailed research will establish which case is relevant to your ancestors.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Is the name Niziolek in your book or do you have any references to it -- family trees, immigrants about 1900, locations in Poland etc. If so let me know, I may be interested in your book.

It is mentioned, but no name is discussed in great detail -- there just wasn't room in the book, instead I concentrated on giving an extensive list of names, tell what basic root they come from, and say what kind of names they are. Then readers can go to the first half of the book and read the chapters that give more info on how names of that sort arose. So if you want anything detailed, I'm sorry, I just didn't have room for it. What I give is basically this: Niziołek (the ł is pronounced like our w) comes ultimately from the root niz- meaning "low, short." One Polish name expert links it with the term niziołek meaning "imp, sprite." It is a pretty common name, as of 1990 there were 3,429 Poles named Niziołek, and another 2,592 named Nizioł, which is the same root without the diminutive suffix -ek.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I happened to come across your links site, and was just wondering if you had any info on the name Kolacki, I didn't see it in your list, that is my grandfathers name, he came from Warsaw, I am trying to trace some lineage back to poland, but so far have not had any luck, any info on the name would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Kołacki (the ł is pronounced like our w) is a moderately common name. As of 1990 there were 1,179 Poles by that name, living all over the country; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (130), Konin (116), Leszno (71), Lodz (73), Poznan (217), Szczecin (64) (there were 40 living in Warsaw province).

Determining what the name comes from is pretty difficult, because there are several possibilities. It could come from kołacz, "cake, wedding-cake" -- if you've ever heard of the Czech pastries called "kolaches," it's basically the same thing -- or it could come from kołat, "noise, din." Without any really solid info to go on, my guess is that it comes from a place-name, meaning "family from __." The problem is, there are several places that qualify, for instance, the villages of Kołata and Kołatka in Poznan province. Those 217 Kołacki's in Poznan province probably got their name from there. However, it's harder to say exactly what place a Kołacki in Warsaw would get his name from.

I know this doesn't really help you much, but it's so often that way with Polish names. You often can't point to one origin and say "This is definitely it." And I'm afraid this is one of those names.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I have just begun a search of my family name. What info I have is very limited. I have researched only a handful of Budrewicz's in America and have had contact via the internet to a Budrewicz in Poland who explained that the name was not widespread to say the least there. I would appreciate any info that you could give me...

The suffix -ewicz means "son of," so the name means "son of Budry, Budre, Budrus" something like that. So the question is, what does that root budr- mean? Ancient records mention a first name Budrys or Budrus which comes from Lithuanian budrus, "alert, watchful"; also in Polish budrus is a term meaning "a Lithuanian." So the name means "son of Budrus" = "son of the alert one," or else "son of the Lithuanian." It is not at all unusual, by the way, to see "Polish" surnames that are connected in form or meaning with Lithuanian names or words, and vice versa.

All things being equal, you'd expect to find a name like this most often in northeastern Poland, near the border with Lithuania (in fact, there is a village Budrowo, from the same root, in Suwałki province, which is in that area). However, over the course of time people have scattered quite a bit; also after World War II millions of people were forced to relocate from the areas east of modern Poland to the western part of Poland, so we find Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian names scattered all over Poland. As of 1990 there were 644 Polish citizens named Budrewicz, and they were literally all over the country. The provinces with the largest numbers (more than 30) were: Warsaw (40), Elblag (47), Gdansk (40), Jelenia Gora (34), Olsztyn (52), Slupsk (36), Suwałki (31), Szczecin (45), and Wroclaw (54). Most of those provinces are in northern Poland, but I see no really useful distribution pattern there; it's a shame we don't have data from before World War II, when things got mixed up so badly.

By the way, the Lithuanian form of this name would be Budrevicius or something similar. You might want to contact Dave Zincavage to ask if he has any sources that shed light on the name and whether it's found in Lithuania. He is quite interested in Lithuanian names and might be able to add something to what I've given.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Hello, I am researching my father's family name Hechlinski (Chechlinski originally I think. I am having a lot of trouble finding out anything about this name...

Since Polish ch and h are pronounced exactly the same (kind of like "ch" in German "Bach"), either spelling is possible. But as of 1990 there were only 13 Poles who used the spelling Hechliński, living in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (8), Gdansk (3), and Katowice (2). On the other hand there were 109 Polish citizens named Chechliński, living in the follow provinces: Warsaw 16, Gdansk 4, Jelenia Gora 3, Katowice 9, Koszalin 3, Krakow 9, Lublin 41, Lodz 5, Nowy Sacz 2, Poznan 4, Rzeszow 2, Tarnobrzeg 6, Zamosc 5. These suggests a concentration in southeastern Poland (Lublin, Rzeszow, Tarnobrzeg, and Zamosc provinces) but shows that it is found elsewhere.

According to the Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut, the ultimate origin of the surname is the verb chechłać, "to drench or to cut with a blunt instrument," but it also is connected with place names such as Chechły and Chechło -- those place names derive from the verbal root by way of the old word chechło, "damp meadow, damp area." There are quite a few villages by those names, so without very detailed info on your family I can't suggest which of them your particular ancestors were named for. But it probably suggested origin from a place with a name beginning Chechl-, and that place in turn got its name from the fact that it was situated on damp, marshy ground.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I recently found your web site through a link from genealogy search web site. After reading your page I thought perhaps you could help me. I am trying to find information on the Polish surname Buruffski. The name belonged to my maternal grandfather (who I never knew)...

As of 1990 there was no one in Poland named Buruffski, and that spelling looks all wrong to me. Most likely the spelling was changed at some point, to make it easier to pronounce; this may have happened during the course of emigration, or it may have happened while your ancestors were still in Europe. If, for instance, they lived in the areas ruled by Germany about 1772-1918 the Germans, who tried to wipe out the Polish culture and language, may have changed it without asking. In any case, that spelling is not likely to be the correct original spelling, which you will probably need to get anywhere with your research. The question is, what was the spelling? I can't be sure, there are many possibilities. The two most likely, from a phonetic point of view are Burowski or Borowski -- the first is pronounced something like "burr-OFF-skee," the second like "bore-OFF-skee." It's not hard to see how either could be mangled into Buruffski. Going by numbers alone, Borowski is the more likely choice: as of 1990 there were 24,889 Poles named Borowski, living all over the country, as opposed to only 84 named Burowski (of whom 55 lived in Krakow province, and a few scattered here and there in other provinces). In some ways, that first syllable of Buruffski suggests it was Burowski, and that might be easier for you -- the other name is so common it's hard to get anywhere with it. Still, with names you really can't jump to conclusions, sometimes you look at the original form and what it ended up as and you're left scratching your head and wondering "How on earth did it get changed to that?"

I'm afraid you'll have to try to find some other records that give the names and especially the place of birth in Poland for your ancestors - the surname alone just doesn't give you enough to go on. That's usually the case, by the way, folks often contact me hoping I can give them a hot clue that'll take 'em right where they need to go. Usually I have to disappoint them (and I hate disappointing people). Still, better to tell the truth than encourage them with false hopes that will inevitably be dashed!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...My name is Anthony Dankowski... Is Dankowski a common Jewish name? And what does Dankowski mean? I do not know anything about my grandparents but I am told they were killed during the war...

Names ending in -owski usually started as a reference to an association between a person and a particular place, and the names of those places generally end in -i, -y, -ow, -owo, etc. I would expect Dankowski to mean "person from Dankow, Dankowo," something like that. There are at least 8 villages named Danków, plus several more named Dankowice that the surname could conceivably derive from. So unfortunately the name Dankowski does not narrow things down much, families coming from any or all of those places could end up being called "Dankowski." The names of those places, in turn, come from names meaning "of, belonging to Danek or Danko," and would refer to some connection between the place and men named Danek or Danko who owned them, founded them, were prominent in them, etc. Danek in turn is a nickname or short form of such first names as Daniel and Bogdan.

Dankowski can be a Jewish name, but it doesn't have to be; Jews or Christians could have a first name Daniel or Bogdan (which means "God-given" and is thus a Slavic translation of Hebrew-based Biblical names such as Nathaniel or Jonathan), so a "Danków" or "Dankowo" could be a place where either religion lived, and thus Dankowski could be a name used by Christians or Jews. There just isn't anything about the name that gives a clue either way. There are some names that by their very nature are unlikely to be borne by Jews or Christians, but this isn't one of them. As of 1990 there were 2,539 Polish citizens named Dankowski, living all over the country. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (233), Poznan (268), Torun (173), and Wloclawek (324), so the numbers are particularly large in north central and west central Poland; but those are provinces with large populations anyway, so I don't know that there's much to be concluded from that pattern.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... looking for the surname Goletz. Have looked for it but haven't found it. Talked to parents and they think it came from Golec. Can you help me?...

Well, I can help a little. Goletz is indeed a German or English spelling of the name Poles spell Golec (the Poles pronounce c as ts or tz), so your parents are probably right about that. As of 1990 there were 16 Polish citizens who spelled their name Goletz, as opposed to 6,474 named Golec, so it seems likely the spelling change took place after your ancestors left Poland; it makes sense they would change it so people around them would have an easier time knowing how to pronounce it... The 6,474 Poles named Golec lived all over Poland, with particularly large numbers in the provinces of Katowice (733), Opole (467), Tarnobrzeg (564), and Tarnow (593); I see no pattern there, apparently the Golec's are not particularly concentrated in any one area. The root of this name is gol-, meaning "bare, naked." Specifically, golec is or was a term meaning "naked person, poor person," in the sense of one so poor he couldn't afford clothes. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but there are a lot of words in Polish meaning the same basic thing, so we have to figure there were plenty of folks so poor they went nearly naked. (As best we can figure, my wife's ancestors' surname, Holochwosc, means basically "bare- assed"!). This may not be the most complimentary of names, but believe me, when you start looking at the meaning of Polish surnames, this is a long way from the worst I've seen!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I understand my family name Mosiniak is a rather uncommon name in most places in the world. Can you tell me something about it ? Or a place to look? I have read your book on surnames.

Mosiniak is not an overly common name in Poland, only some 161 Polish citizens bore this name as of 1990. The root of the name is Mos-, which is like a short form or nickname for such first names as Mojsław (literally "my glory") and Mojzesz (Moses). Poles often took the first couple of sounds from a name, dropped the rest, and added suffixes. Thus Mos- could arise from Mojslaw or Moses, then Mosin would mean "of, belonging to Mos)," then -iak probably means "son of." So to whatever extent you can translate the name, it would mean something like "son of, kin of Mojslaw or Moses." That may seem kind of fuzzy, but names are that way -- what does "Ted" mean? It's just a short form of a name, "Theodore," which did originally mean something ("gift of God" in Greek), but by the time the nickname "Ted" arose no one associated any meaning with it any longer. Same with this Polish name: it just means "son of Mos, son of Mosin, Mosin's kin."

There is also the possibility it might refer to a place: -iak with a form of a personal name usually means "son of," but sometimes it's use with place names. There is a village in Poznan province named Mosina, I can't rule out the chance that Mosiniak started out meaning "person from Mosina." The chances are good enough to be worth mentioning.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am interested in finding out about my family's history. All I know is that my parents came from Poland to the US about 1950. My maiden name is Plech. My mother's maiden name is Zarobski. If you could give me some information about my surname, or how to find out more about my Polish history, I would appreciate it.

With Plech it depends on what the original Polish spelling was. If it was Plech, Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions this in his book as deriving from the noun plech, "cuirass" (a certain part of armor, if I remember correctly). If it was Plecha, it could come from that root, it might also come from the term plecha, "bald spot, bare spot." If it was Płecha (with ł which sounds like our w), then it probably comes from the root płcha, "flea." As of 1990 there were 476 Poles named Plech, 76 named Plecha, and 460 named Płecha.

Zarobski is a bit of a puzzle. It's not a very common name -- in 1990 there were only 33 Zarobski's living in Poland, most of them (25) living in Lublin province in southeast Poland. The name might refer to a village or community named Zarob, Zaroby, something like that, or it may come directly from the verb root zarobić, "to earn, merit." None of my sources mention it, so that educated guess is about the best I can do.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Hello my name is Ben Rosen I have been doing my family tree and I was wondering if you know any informaion about the last name Rosen or Wallach. I can't find much stuff on either, I believe Wallach is either Russian or Polish and Rosen is German or Russian not sure.

Rosen and Wallach are both originally of Germanic (Yiddish) linguistic origin, meaning "rose" and "foreign" respectively, but there were lots of people with those names who lived in Germany, Poland, Russia, all over eastern Europe. One problem is that both names were so common that it's hard to really pin anything down without detailed info one exactly where the specific families involved came from. There are three books you might be able to access through the library that will tell you more. One is Benzion Kaganoff's A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History, Schocken Books, NY 1977 -- I believe a new edition has recently been put out, but don't have the relevant publication info handy. Still, with any luck you should be able to find a copy thru a library. Kaganoff gives good explanations, his book is very readable and not too expensive, but sometimes his derivations are suspect.

More accurate, but less readable and considerably more expensive, are Alexander Beider's two books, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland and A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire." For more info on them, see the Webpage of Avotaynu, Inc. at www.avotaynu.com. Either book gives good background info, as well as some specific data on where people with particular names lived and what the names meant. With these books I would definitely recommend trying to get a look at them through a library or genealogical society -- you wouldn't want to spend the money to buy a copy unless you've seen first whether it's worth it to you. But they do have some really good info.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I feel so lost. I have been doing genealogical research for 26 years, mostly in this country. I avoided the Trochowski branch for a lot of reasons. Now that everyone who resisted my efforts to connect with the "old" country is dead I can start really from scratch. Any info on the name Trochowski (Trohoski) would be helpful. I know my g-grandfather settled in Erie, PA and died there.

Names ending in -owski usually originated due to some link between the family and a place name, generally ending in -ow, -owo-, -y, something like that. I can't find any villages named Trochy or Trochowo on my maps -- there are probably such places but they are too small to show up. In any rate, that's what the surname most likely comes from -- it meant "person from Trochy/Trochowo." The place, in turn, probably got its name from the root trocha, "small, little." As of 1990 there were 509 Polish citizens named Trochowski, scattered all over Poland but with significant concentrations in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (144), Elblag (36), Gdansk (222), and Torun (33). These are all in a relatively small region, the northcentral part of Poland, in areas long ruled by the Germans.

If your ancestor settled in Erie, PA, you might want to investigate the Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast, 8 Lyle Rd, New Britain CT 06053. They have a number of members in Pennsylvania, they might be able to help you make some contacts that would prove useful. The Polish Genealogical Society of America is also pretty big in Pennsylvania, and has a lot of members from the part of Poland the Trochowski's live in -- you can learn more about the PGSA at their Website, www.pgsa.org.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...HI, My last name is Kusmisz. My family is from Poland (Warsaw and Kaszimierz). The last name may have been changed, originally being Kaszimierz. Uncertain. Any info is appreciated, or help with how to find any information on my Polish relatives or where the name derives...

There are a couple of other names Kusmisz could conceivably come from, but if you have reason to believe it was originally Kaszimierz, that is certainly plausible. Actually the standard Polish spelling is Kazimierz, and it's an ancient Slavic name dating back to when the Poles were pagans and gave their children names formed by joining two root-words to express a kind of hope or prophecy for their children. So Kazimierz comes from the root kazi-, "to destroy" + mir, "peace" -- thus naming a child Kazimierz was expressing the wish that he would grow up to be a destroyer of peace, i. e., a great warrior ("peace" as ancient Slavs thought of it was not necessarily the wonderful thing we consider it, they gloried in war).

Kazimierz is an extremely popular first name in Poland, and has been for a long time -- it's one of the few Polish names that is even used in English, in the Latinized form Casimir. It is not all that common as a surname -- as of 1990 there were only about 202 Polish citizens with Kazimierz as a surname. But other names formed from it are extremely popular -- for instance, Kazimierczak (5,095), Kazmierczak (28,198) [both of which mean "son of Kazimierz"), and Kazmierski (5,240). The latter basically means "of, pertaining to, belonging to Kazimierz," and in many cases probably means "coming from Kazimierz" -- there are several places by that name in Poland.

So to some extent the questions in your case are, what was the original form, and when and where was it changed? As of 1990 there was no Polish citizen with the name Kusmisz, and only 8 with the name Kusmirz (in this case the RZ and SZ are pronounced the same, like our "sh"). I think you'll have to answer those questions before you can make much progress. Part of the problem is, surnames from this name are too common for the name itself to do you much good.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...You were so very helpful when I asked about my Puchiks, Moizuks, Judyckis etc, that I wondered if you could assist me with the origins and meanings of two more names: Olshefski and Stypulkowski...

Like most surnames ending in -owski, both of these are probably derived from place names. Olshefski is an anglicized spelling of Polish Olszewski, which is pronounced roughly "ol-SHEF-skee," so that spelling in English makes sense. The list of villages this name could refer to is pretty long, as there are quite a few villages named Olszew, Olszewka, Olszewo, so it's not surprising there are a lot of Olszewski's in Poland -- as of 1990, some 44,638, living all over the country! The root of the place names, in turn, is the word olsza, "alder tree." So Olszewski means basically "person from the place(s) associated with alder trees."

Stypułkowski appears to derive ultimately from the root stypuła, "drumstick," and there are several villages with compound names, "Stypułki" (literally "little drumsticks") + a second name, e. g. Stypułki Borki, Stypułki Giemzin, etc., in Kobylin Borzymy and Sokoly parishes of Łomża province; there may be more elsewhere, too small to show up on my maps. It's hard to say exactly why these villages got that name, perhaps there was a geographic feature that looked like a drumstick, or perhaps there was a family in the area that made drumsticks, or perhaps the places belonged at some point to a person with the nickname "little drumstick" -- the names probably originated centuries ago, so it's tough to say just how they got started. In any case, Stypułkowski would mean roughly "person from the place associated with little drumsticks," or just "family from Stypułki."

As of 1990 there were 1,636 Polish citizens named Stypułkowski, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (176), Białystok (344), and Łomża (551). The concentration in northeastern Poland is enough to make me wonder if most of the Stypułkowskis did, in fact, come from the area of those villages I mentioned above, and then spread out. I don't know if that's true, or if there are other Stypułkis in other parts of the country, too small to show up in my sources.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Could you please research my family name Klevinski. My father thinks the original spelling started with "Ch". My grandfather came to America from Poland around 1890. Thank you in advance for your help.

The problem here is trying to figure out what the original form of the name was in Poland. The v is wrong because Poles don't use v; but that's not a big problem, Polish w sounds like v and thus is often spelled as v by non-Poles. So we can say Klewiński is the way the name would be rendered by Poles. But what about the first letter? Your father could be right, non-Poles often had trouble with the guttural ch or h sound in Polish and turned it into k, which is the closest sound in English. So we might be dealing with Chlewiński.

But Klewiński is a recognized Polish name -- as of 1990 there were 72 Poles named Klewiński, living in the provinces of Warsaw (18), Bielsko-Biala (5), Gorzow (16), Jelenia Gora (1), Leszno (3), Lublin (6), Olsztyn (22) and Opole (1). There's no recognizable pattern to this, they're scattered all over the country. But the point is that this name is possible. It derives most likely from Klewe, a German place name, and generally Klew- in German comes from a short form of the first name Niklaus (Nicholas); there is a village Klewinowo in Białystok province.

If the name was originally Chlewiński, it comes from the root chlew, "pigsty." There were 238 Poles named Chlewińskias of 1990, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Olsztyn (40) and Pila (52), in northcentral Poland, the area formerly called Prussia and ruled for a long time by the Germans.

So either name is possible, and there's really no way I can tell you for sure which is right in your case. I guess you'll just have to hope you can find some record (immigration and naturalization papers, ship passenger lists, parish records in this country) that will establish what the original form was and where the family came from.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I have been trying to find information on my maternal grandmother. She was said to be polish. Is the surname Jamrozy Polish?...

Yes, Jamroży is Polish (ż is the dotted z, pronounced like "s" in "measure"). It is actually a polonized version of the first name "Ambrose," in Latin Ambrosius. In Polish the standard form of this name is Ambroży, but in medieval Polish records we also see it in the form Jamroży (pronounced "yahm-ROZH-ee"). It was back in that same time period it began to be used as a surname, also; and although it is seldom seen as a first name anymore (as I said, Ambroży is the standard form of the name these days), it has survived as a surname. In 1990 there were some 1,045 Polish citizens with the surname Jamroży (and 4,399 named Jamro'z, from another form!). There doesn't seem to be any particular pattern to where they lived, so we can't say this name is more likely to come from one part of Poland than another -- but that's usually the case with surnames derived from first names.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Yes, I have an odd surname. The name Scislaw has NOT been changed, shortened, etc from Poland to the US. (I have seen marriage documents-1890s- in Zuromin Poland for the name Scislaw.)

The name has a mark over the Cap "S" or "c" (sorry I can't remember) and a slash through the "l". My grandmother pronounced the name "Shish Waff" or "Chish waff"

The ONLY time I have ever seen the name in any form is from the town of Mstislav in Russia today. In the 1700s when Poland owned it...it was shown on a map as Mscislaw (same accent marks as mine...but with an M). I don't know if that means anything but I do know that Mstislav is a first name and not a surname....but then again, there is an M in front... ANY CLUES???

This is an unusual name, no question, and I'm glad you've done a good job of documenting it. Your grandmother's pronunciation is fairly accurate -- in standard Polish the name Ścisław (spelled as you indicate) would be pronounced roughly "SHCHEES-waff," and could very easily be pronounced in everyday use as your grandmother did.

As of 1990 there were only 9 Polish citizens with the surname Ścisław. They lived in the provinces of Ciechanow (8) and Torun (1). Unfortunately I do not have access to further details such as first names and addresses, but at least we know the name has not died out in Poland -- and if you ever do find a Ścisław in Poland, chances are excellent he/she is a relative!

The name could fool us because it looks and sounds like a couple of the ancient pagan Slavic names formed by joining two roots to create a kind of name of omen or prophecy for a child. You mention Mścisław (in Russian "Mstislav," there is a famous Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich), from the roots mści-, "avenge" + -sław, "glory," thus meaning "one famed for taking revenge." But in that name the M- is such an integral part of the meaning and the name that it would be rare for it just to drop off. So it probably has nothing to do with your name... There are other names such as Czesław, but these, too, probably have nothing to do with your name.

What is likely is that this name derives from the root ścisł-, "compact, dense, exact." There are several common names from this root, including Ścisło, Ścisłowski, etc. Name expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions these and others, including Ścisławski (24 Poles by that name as of 1990), as coming from that root -- he does not specifically mention Ścisław, but if Ścisławski derives from it, it's a good bet Ścisław does, too. The suffix -aw- is adjectival, and we often see it added to roots (e. g., Bielawa < bial-, biel-, "white"). So strictly from a linguistic point of view the name probably originated as meaning "person with a compact, dense body," thus someone who was short and thick and powerful. Ścisło is a more common one meaning the same thing.

There is also a plant in the myrtle family called ścisławin, Latin name beaufortia. I'm not familiar with it, but I'll bet it got this name because it grows thick and dense. It might be connected with your name, but not necessarily -- I mention it only because it proves that names can be formed from the root ścisław-.

So I can't be 100% certain, but it is very plausible that this is a variant of other names from the same root that happen to be a bit more common. There is nothing odd or strange about a Polish name formed by taking a root such as ścisł- and adding the adjectival suffix -aw. This is all perfectly natural and plausible, and that's my opinion as to how the name was formed. I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is this is right.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...noticed you had information on Czyzewski and Malewicz. I was wondering if the info for those names are the same for Ciszewski and Malewicki? If not, do you have any info on these names you can share with me?

The Malewicz info would be very similar -- this means basically "son of the little guy," or perhaps "son of Mal" with Mal being a short form of a longer name such as Malomir. This is a moderately common name, with 1,113 Poles by this name as of 1990. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (109), Białystok (117), Bydgoszcz (173), Gorzow (82) and Szczecin (82). I really don't see much in the way of a pattern to the distribution, which makes sense -- a name like this could got started anywhere Polish was spoken and there were short guys who had children!

Czyzewski comes ultimately from the root czyz, "green finch, siskin," but more directly from a place name such as Czyzewo, Czyzew, etc. -- and there are a lot of those. As of 1990 there were 10,543 Poles named Czyzewski, living all over the country. So I'm afraid it's one of those names that's too common to help much. It can help in one way, however: if you do good research and pin down the part of Poland the family came from, and you notice there's a place called Czyzew or Czyzewo nearby, chances are good that's the particular village the name derived from in your case.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Could you please provide any available information on the following names: Ampuła and Mydło?...

As of 1990 there were 167 Polish citizens named Ampuła, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Warsaw (25), Ciechanow (24), and Kalisz (60). It apparently comes from the noun ampuła, from Latin ampulla, a container used in church for wine or water at the Eucharist. In more modern Polish ampuła means the same thing as the English term "ampoule" or "ampule," a small glass vial. It's tough to say how a person would get this surname -- perhaps the family made or sold such items? Or I suppose it could be a nickname based on a person's shape. Without going back several hundred years to the time and place of the name's origin, it's a little tough saying exactly how it got started.

Mydło is a moderately common name, as of 1990 there were 472 Poles named Mydło. It comes from the noun mydło, "soap," perhaps indicating a person who made or sold soap, or maybe even a nickname for a very clean person. Poles by that name live all over the country, but there is a definite concentration in the provinces of Olsztyn (80) and Ostrołęka (192) in north-central and northeast Poland.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...About the only information I have on them is their last name. If you could find the time to research these 2 names, I would appreciate it very much: Felenak and Stanczewski...

The name Felenak is either slightly misspelled or else very rare -- as of 1990 there was no one in Poland named Felenak. There were 62 Poles named Felenczak, and 640 named Feliniak. It could be the name was Felenak and as such was a pretty rare variation of a name such as Feliniak, or perhaps somewhere along the way the spelling was accidentally changed. Either way, names beginning with Felen- and Felin- come from nicknames or short forms of such Polish first names as Feliks (Felix) or Felicjan (a name seldom used in English, we'd probably spell it Felician). Poles often took the first syllable of a popular first name, dropped the rest (much as we turned "Theodore" into "Ted") and added suffixes. Felenak or Feliniak would both mean something like "son of Feliks or Felicjan." Unfortunately none of these names shows any particular distribution frequency, so I can't suggest a specific part of Poland where this name is most likely to be found -- it could show up almost anywhere.

Stanczewski also derives ultimately from a short form of a first name, in this case Stanisław (in English and Latin Stanislaus), often abbreviated by Poles as Stan or Staś; a name such as Stanczak or Stanczyk means "Stan's son," so that may be where the -cz- comes from. However, names ending in -ewski usually derive from a place name such as Stanczewo, something like that, and those places names in turn meant "Stan's son's place," referring perhaps to a man who once owned or founded the village. So Stanczewski probably started out meaning "person or family from Stanczewo, i. e., Stan's son's place." I can't find any such place on my maps, but most likely that just means it was too small or has since changed its name or been absorbed by another village. As of 1990 there were 242 Poles named Stanczewski, with the largest numbers showing up in the provinces of Pila (70) and Torun (39) in northcentral Poland. There were another 263 named Stańczewski, with larger numbers in the provinces of Tarnow (26), Torun (43), and Wloclawek (36).

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Could you tell me the name origins for my great grandparents names? Sztukowski and Makowski...

Names ending in -owski usually derive from a place name the family came from or was otherwise associated with. Typically, those place names end in -ow or -owo, although there are other possibilities. Thus Makowski means "person or family associated with Makow/Makowo"; if the family was noble, they probably owned the estate or village at some time, and if they were peasants, they probably lived and worked there. There are several Maków's and at least one Makowo in Poland, so it's tough to tell which of them your particular Makowski's might have come from. As is usually the case when a surname can come from several different place names, Makowski is a very common name in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 25,340 Poles by that name, with no apparent concentration in any one part of the country. Warsaw province has the most, with 3,155, but virtually every province has at least a few hundred Makowski's living in it. The ultimate root of the name is mak, which means "poppy," so that "Makow" or "Makowo" may have started out meaning "the place with lots of poppies." In some cases it can also come from short forms of first names such as Maksym and Makary, kind of like our English nickname "Mack"; in those cases Makow or Makowo meant "Mak's place." So Makowski means either "person from Mak's place" or "person from the poppy place."

Sztukowski is less common, though still not rare; as of 1990 there were 1,011 Polish citizens named Sztukowski. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Kalisz (378) and Suwałki (232), with much smaller numbers in virtually every other province. The interesting thing is, I can't find a place named Sztuków or Sztukowo or even Sztuki on the map, which surprises me. Of course, there could be several little villages by this name, too small to show up on maps or in gazetteers, or there may be one or more places that used to have this name and changed it, or were absorbed into other communities -- since surnames typically originated several centuries ago, a lot can change and make it hard to find the place referred to. The ultimate root of the name is sztuka, "piece, part," from German Stueck.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I was wondering if you can help me to find out a little more about the origins of my last name: Drwięga. I'm from Poland and I know that most of my family came from city Sanok in eastern Poland...

I'm surprised to find that none of my sources mention Drwięga -- as of 1990 there were 669 Polish citizens by that name, so it is hardly a rare name, and I would have expected that somebody would have written about it. Your link to Sanok does make sense, in that of those 669 Drwięga's, 383 lived in the province of Krosno. The others are scattered in small numbers all over Poland, with no other province having more than 40.

That information may be a little help, but I'm afraid I just cannot find anything else. This is a case where I recommend writing to the Pracownia Antroponimiczna Instytutu Jezyka Polskiego in Krakow, especially since you can probably write them in Polish, and letters in Polish are easier and quicker for them to answer. They don't do genealogical research, they just do research into the origins of names; from what others tell me, it's rare to pay more than US$20 for their analysis, and I have heard from many who were very happy with their work.

I'm sorry I could not help you, and I hope the scholars at the Pracownia can. If you do write them and they provide a good answer, I would be very interested in hearing what they say, so that I could include this information in the next edition of my book -- and thus pass the information on to other people with Drwięga ancestors!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...We are just beginning our search for the location of the town where our Father was born: Uscilug, Wolyn, Poland in 1905--family name Soroczynski...

Uscilug is now called Ustilug, and it is in Ukraine (Wolyn is the Polish name of a region of Ukraine, called Volhynia in English); it's about 120 km. north of Lvov (Ukr. name L'viv).

Soroczyński comes from the root soroka, "magpie"; the root is the same in Polish and Ukrainian. Specifically, names ending in -iński or -yński usually refer to a family's connection with a town or village, so that I would expect this name to mean "family from Sorocko, Soroczno," something like that, and those names in turn would mean "place of the magpies," i. e., an area notable because there were a lot of these birds around. I can't pin it down as to which particular village the name refers to because there are a number of possibilities, especially if the territory now in Ukraine has to be considered. As of 1990 there were 978 Polish citizens named Soroczyński (I have no data on how many Ukrainians might have this name). In Poland the people named Soroczynski were scattered all over, with some of the larger numbers in the provinces of Białystok (56), Gorzow (80), Szczecin (102), Walbrzych (56), Wroclaw (91), and Zielona Gora (75) -- all over the map.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am researching my genealogy and I came across your page on the Internet saying that you might be able to tell me about my surname. The names I have are Moryl and Ruzicki (I don't know if this is the right spelling). If you could tell me anything about their origins I would greatly appreciate that. I believe they were from the region of Galicia (do you know if Galicia the same as Selisia)?...

Galicia was the name given the area ruled by Austria from about 1775-1918; it covered southeastern Poland (from about Krakow east) and western Ukraine. "Selisia" is probably Silesia, the name of an industrial region in southwestern Poland and the western part of the Czech Republic -- it was called Schlesien by the Germans (who ruled it for a long time) and Śląsk or Szląsk by the Poles. So no, the two aren't the same -- both are in what is now southern Poland, but Silesia is west of Galicia.

Moryl could come from two different sources: there is a term morela, "apricot," and Morel was a sort of short form or nickname for the name Maurelius. So the name may have originated as a reference to the apricot (perhaps to someone who loved to eat them, or grew or sold them, or lived near a place where they were grown), but it might also mean nothing more than any other nickname -- just as "Ted," "Ed', "Jack" don't really mean anything in English, they're just short forms of first names. As of 1990 there were 480 Polish citizens named Moryl, scattered all over the country but with larger numbers in the provinces of Lublin (86) and Tarnow (138), both of which are in eastern and southeastern Poland; Tarnow province would have been in Galicia, I don't think Lublin province was, I think it was in the area ruled by the Russian Empire.

Ruzicki comes ultimately from the Polish form of the word for "rose," spelled as róża (sounding like our word "rouge" with a final -a tacked on). It's a tough name to get a handle on because there are potentially so many different ways this root can be spelled. Ruzicki probably originated in most cases as meaning "person or family associated with a place named Ruzyce or Ruzice or Rózyce" -- there are many, many places with names this could come from. Polish accented ó and Polish u are pronounced the same, so almost any place with a name beginning with Róz- or Ruz- could spawn this name. The form Ruzicki is rather rare (only 42 as of 1990), but Różycki was the name of 10,411 Poles as of 1990. So it's rather important to try to trace the family back as far as possible and see if you can determine the original spelling. If it really was Ruzicki, there aren't many of them left in Poland, they may be hard to track down but odds are decent they're related; but if Ruzicki is just an anglicized form of Różycki, there are thousands of them.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I took your advice about contacting the Prof. in Krakow, in fact I went to see him at his office (after making an appointment of course). The attached file which I hope works is his written answer after 2 months, I would , and I presume he would not mind, is to put it on to your site for future reference, and hopefully other "Nieurzyla's" will see it and maybe contact me. Hoping that you find this interesting. Regards and thank you.... John Nieurzyla.

Krakow, November 6, 1997.

Dear Mr. Nieurzyla,

During your visit in the Polish Language Institute in Krakow, in September this year, we talked about the suspected origin of your surname Nieurzyla. As I wanted to consult some additional sources in order to look for the existence of different bases Nieurz- and Nieui- I promised you to write to you, after some time. Now, I can surely say that such a base as *nieurz- does not exist in Polish. In the book entitled: Slownik nazwisk wspoIczesnie w Polsce uzywanych (A dictionary of surnames borne at present in Poland), Vol.VI, Krakow 1993, published by professor Kazimierz Rymut, which I showed you, there are people who bear the same surname in different spelling, namely: Nieurzyla, Nieuzylla, Nieuzyla, Nieuzylla and Nieużyla. All these variants belong to one and the same proper Polish form Nieuzy*la. There are only 4 people in Poland who bear Nieurzyla as their surname. They live, at present, in the Bielsko-Biala province (3 people) and in that of Katowice (1 person). thus in the historical province Upper Silesia (=Gorny Slask). The surname in the form Nieużyla is borne in Poland by 347 people. Most of them (238 people) live also in the Upper Silesia, namely in the Katowice province. In the Lower Silesia (Dolny Slask), in the province of Opole reside till to-day 94 people named Nieu*zyla. The rest are spread all over Poland. This means that the surname Nieuzyla (the same refers also to other variants was borne mainly on the Silesian territory and that just there was the nest of this family. As, in the past, Silesia was ruled successively by Polish, Czech and German princes and kings the Slavic etymology of your surname might be of both Polish and Czech origin. The base of the surname might come from both old-Czech past participle neuz^il or neuz^ily and old-Polish nieużyly, modern Polish: nieuz(*yty, in both languages meaning the same:'a hedgehog'. The form ending in -a, thus Nieużyla instead of Nieu*zyly came into existence as a result of the so called "paradigmatic derivation". During this process the verbal (participial) form nieuzyly was introduced to the substantival paradigm, in this case to the feminine grammatical paradigm ending in -a - Nieuzyla. In Polish there are a lot of surnames of men which are declined according to the feminine grammatical form. We must for example le say: nie widzialem dzisiaj pana Nieużyly - (To-day, I haven't seen Mr. Nieuzyla) or Kupowalem te ksiatke z panem Nieużyla (I have, bought this book together with Mr. Nieuzla) and so on.

Another interesting consideration. If the surname Nieu*zyla (Nieurzyla) were of Czech origin it would first to be Polonicized, as the original Czech form would have to be spelled Neuz^il. As you remember I found such a surname in a book devoted to the Czech surnames. Therefore, we may say that the form Nieużyla is either a Polonicized form of a Czech Neuz^il or an original Polish form Nieużyla. To sum up it is to say that the form of the surname Nieurzyla, used by you, is an incorrect orthographic form of the proper Polish one: Nieużyla. Such incorrectness originated therefore that from the 17th century the sound spelled in Polish rz and ż was pronounced with us in the same way, namely as ż (in English marked phonetically as this sound you can find in the English word "measure." ) Till nowadays many people in Poland make mistakes in spelling, by writing rz instead of ż and vice versa. The newest example: At present, an American first name Jessica became very popular in Poland. It occurs that even in Polish Register Offices this name is registered against Polish rules of spelling, namely Drzesica, although the proper Polish counterpart of Americam Jessica should be spelled rather Diezika. In Polish linguistic circles, however, there is opinion that the names borrowed from those of foreign ones should be spelled according to their original foreign forms. Alas, there are with us also some linguistic purists who want that foreign names were adapted to Polish spelling rules. This is all I could tell you on the linguistic origin of your surname.

With best greetings

Klimek

...I am looking for the history of my last name. Bialobzeski, I have found so far that the correct spelling is Bialobrzeski. If you have any information at all please e-mail me back and let me know...

You're right about the correct spelling, it is Białobrzeski (the ł is pronounced like our W, so that the name sounds kind of like "bee-yah-woe-BZHEH-ski," with "zh" standing for the sound in the name "Zhivago" or like the "s" in "measure"). It is one of many names formed from the names of places; it could come from Białobrzeg, Białobrzegi, and Białobrzeskie, and they all mean basically "white shore, white coast." Unfortunately there are more than a dozen places in Poland bearing these names, so the surname itself gives no clue which of those villages any one Białobrzeski family came from (and most likely there's more than one family by this name). But such names usually originated because of a connection between a family and those places, so that the surname means "person/family from Białobrzeg/Białobrzegi/ Białobrzeskei," or, to break it down further, "family from the place with the white shore." If a family by this name was noble, it probably owned the villages at one point; if not, they probably worked the land there, or traveled there often on business.

As is normal with surnames derived from common place names, this is a fairly common surname in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 1,910 Polish citizens named Białobrzeski. There's no one area where the name is most common; we see the largest numbers living in the provinces of Warsaw (507), Łomża (153), Ostrołęka (286), and Wroclaw (110), but there are people by this name in virtually every province of Poland.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am writing to enquire if you can assist me in tracing the origin and meaning of the name Jablecki. My great grandparents were Felix and Susanne Jablecki and they remained in Poland. I have some details of family history and I would really like to learn more. I have recently discovered that the surname of jablecki was taken by some Jewish families, but to my knowledge, my ancestors were Catholic. Any help will be much appreciated...

The original spelling of the name in Polish would be Jabłecki (where ł is pronounced like our W, so that the name would sound like "yahb-WET-skee.") The ultimate root is the word jabłko, meaning "apple," and there are a number of common surnames from it, including Jabłoński, Jabłkowski, Jabłonka, etc. I suspect Jabłecki is likely to be associated with a place name, perhaps a village called Jabłko or Jabłek, something like that. I can't find any such place on my maps, but that doesn't mean anything; some of the place names that gave rise to surnames have since changed, or the places have been renamed or absorbed into other communities. Such place names would mean "place of the apples," so they probably got the name because there was a stand of apple trees in the area. So you might construe the surname as "one from the place of the apples."

This is a fairly common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 1,042 Polish citizens named Jabłecki. There were Jabłecki's living in virtually every province, with larger numbers (more than 50) in the provinces of Warsaw (194), Katowice (69), Łomża (85), Ostrołęka (94), Poznan (79), and Przemysl (97). As a map will show, these provinces are scattered all over Poland, so there is no one area we can point to and say "This is where the name came from." Most likely, there were tiny communities with names like Jabłko, Jabłek, Jabłecko all over, so the surname originated as referring to families coming from any or all of those places.

By the way, surnames of this type could easily be borne by Christians or Jews -- there may have been Jews named Jabłecki, but you could hardly say it was a "Jewish" surname. Alexander Beider does not mention Jabłecki in his Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland," which suggests it was not borne by many Jews, at least not in the eastern part of what is now Poland. And your ancestors' first names were definitely Christian (although Susanna can be Jewish, it is normally seen in a form reflecting Yiddish origin and pronunciation, such as Szoszana). So if the family was Jewish, it probably converted several generations back -- which was by no means rare.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I have been researching my surname and its origins and was wondering if you had any information about it. My name is Joanna Paraszczuk and my family are originally from Buczacz in Galicia (now part of Ukraine). I really would be very grateful if you could tell me anything you know!...

While none of my sources specifically mention Paraszczuk, I think I can give you a pretty good idea of its origin. It almost certainly means "son of Paraska," and Paraska (a variant of the Greek-derived first name Prakseda or Parakseda) is a feminine name far more common among Orthodox and Greek Catholics than among Polish Roman Catholics. This fits in well with your info -- you'd expect a name like this to show up more in what is now Ukraine than in Poland. From a social standpoint, too, this makes sense -- names derived from metronymics (mother's names) are far more common among Ukrainians than among Poles, who generally preferred patronymics (names derived from the father's name). So at some point in your family history there was a woman named Paraska who was prominent enough that her family came to bear a surname pointing to origin from her. In Ukrainian the Cyrillic spelling of this surname would look something like this: Паращук. It would tend to be spelled "Parashchuk" by our phonetic standards, but Poles spell the Slavic combination "shch" as szcz.

This name is, as we'd expect, rather rare among Polish citizens -- as of 1990 there were only 137 Paraszczuk's in Poland, scattered all over (probably due to post World War II forced relocations of Ukrainians to western Poland). I imagine the name's a lot more common in Ukraine, but have no data on that. You might visit to learn more about Ukrainian language, customs, history, etc.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I would like to know more about my last name- Kornatowski. Anything that you would be willing to tell me would be great (better than I know know)...

The surname Kornatowski, like most names ending in -owski, almost certainly refers to a place name, meaning something like "person or family associated with Kornaty or Kornatowo." In older times (not so much anymore) when Polish added the -ski suffix other suffixes had a tendency to drop off, so there are a number of names theoretically possible that Kornatowski could derive from. On my maps I see a village Kornaty in Konin province, perhaps 20 km. east of Wrzesnia, in west central Poland; also there's a village Kornatowo in Torun province, about 30 km. north of Torun, not that far northeast of the other one. People coming from these villages, and others too small to show up on maps and in gazetteers, could easily end up being called Kornatowski as a reference to lands they owned (if they were noble) or worked on (if they were peasants). These place names, in turn, derive from Kornat, a variant of the first name we know as "Conrad," so that the surname means basically "person from Conrad's place."

This is a moderately common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 1,280 Kornatowski's living in Poland, in virtually every province. The largest numbers were in the provinces of Warsaw (218), Ciechanow (207), Gdansk (93), and Poznan (84), but as I say, the name is found in almost every part of Poland. This is not unusual -- places were often named for their owners or founders, and surnames derived from those place names, so this name could show up almost anywhere they spoke Polish and had guys named Kornat, i.e ., almost anywhere in Poland.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I found your page on the net which explains name origins and am interested in finding the meaning or origin of my families original name. If you have time any assistance would be appreciated...

The name Dzierżanowski, like most surnames ending in -owski, almost certainly began as a reference to a person or family's connection with place names -- in this case we'd expect it to mean "one from Dzierzanow, Dzierzanowo," etc. In older Polish when they added the suffix -ski prior endings had a tendency to drop off, so quite a few different places could yield the same name. I see on the map a village Dzierżanów in Kalisz province and villages Dzierżanowo in Ostrołęka and Płock provinces, and there could easily be more too small to show up on the maps. All these place names, in turn, derive from an old first name Dzierżan, from a root meaning "to hold, keep," so the villages originally meant something like "Dzierżan's place" (Dzierżan was probably the name of a founder or owner at some point), and the surname means "person from Dzierżan's place. It's a common surname in Poland, as of 1990 there were 1,526 Poles named Dzierżanowski, scattered all over but with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Warsaw (241), Białystok (138), Ciechanow (164), and Katowice (113).

Kowalczyk just means "smith's son," and is very common -- as of 1990 there were 87,690 Poles by that name, living all over the country.

Rutecki is a moderately common name, as of 1990 there were 1,526 Poles named Rutecki. This is probably also derived from a place name such as Rutka or Rutki, and there are several villages by those names in Poland. The ultimate origin of the name is either ruta, "rue" (a kind of plant) or a variant of rudka, a place where iron ore could be found.

Podowski is a tough one, I'm not sure what that comes from. If you write the Institute in Poland, this may be the one they can help you most with, if the form is correct -- it may be the name was originally spelled otherwise, but it was mangled somewhat over the course of years or during immigration. As of 1990 there were 216 Poles named Podowski, so the name is not unknown in Poland; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (30), Ciechanow (53), Gdansk (20) and Olsztyn (48), with a few others scattered here and there. But I've never run across it before, and my sources don't give any clues what it might come from.

... I will also take your advice and contact the institut in Poland...

That's a good idea. But don't waste their time with Kowalczyk, that's just too common and they wouldn't be able to add much to what I've said. Dzierżanowski is probably also a little too common to be much good. But their notes on Rutecki and Podowski are especially likely to prove informative.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I have been trying to locate any information on the above name, Wydrych. I know it is Polish...

Wydrych is a Polish name, as of 1990 there were 805 Polish citizens by that name. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Czestochowa (93), Katowice (79), Kielce (181), and Krakow (81), which are all in southcentral Poland. Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions it in his book on Polish surnames, saying that names beginning with Wydr- usually derive from the word wydry, "otter"; perhaps because a person caught otters, or made a noise like one, or somehow otherwise reminded people of an otter. Many surnames started out as nicknames, and it can be tough to figure out why a nickname originally seemed appropriate (there was a character named "Otter" in the movie "Animal House," and I haven't a clue why that was his name). I should also mention that this name might also derive from the verb wydrzyć, "to tear out or away, to pluck."

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Do you have any info on my maternal grandparents names? My grandfather was a Dzerwucki from the Poznan area. My grandmother was a Staron from the Lwow area...

How firm is that spelling of Dzerwucki? Because I've never seen that name before, and as of 1990 there was nobody in Poland named Dzerwucki. The combination Dzer- is rare in Polish, Dzier- is a bit more likely, but there wasn't anyone named Dzierwucki either. Is there any chance the letters have been switched and it was Drzewucki? That is a moderately common name; as of 1990 there were 438 Drzewucki's living in Poland, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (99), Gdansk (34), Szczecin (33), Torun (37), Wloclawek (180). If Drzewucki is the original form, the name probably derives from the root drzew-, "tree, wood"... I'm not saying Dzerwucki can't be right, it can; but it would be quite rare, and it doesn't really look or feel right to me. I think verifying the original form could be pretty important here.

As of 1990 there were 3,230 Poles named Staroń, living all over the country but with the largest numbers (more than 100) in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (244), Katowice (601), Kielce (100), Krakow (106), Krosno (154), Lodz (122), Rzeszow (166), Warsaw (115), Wroclaw (192), Zamosc (144). Most of these are in southcentral and southeastern Poland, but I don't see any pattern more specific than that. The name comes from the root star-, "old" (in Polish and Ukrainian), so Staroń probably began as a nickname meaning "old fellow" or something of the sort.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I would be interested in any information you could help me find on my surname, Cielencki. I have seen several variations of the spelling over the years and am unsure if this is correct...

Are you a member of the Polish Genealogical Society of Texas? With your family's roots, it would seem a logical place to look for help with your research. For more info visit the Website:

… To my knowledge my fathers family other than one brother were all killed. He came from Warsaw my Fathers name was Tomasz Stopczynski, dob: 21st December 1908 , his only surviving brothers name was Stefan of the same surname dob: unknown.

The ultimate root of Stopczyński is clear: it comes from stopa, "foot." But Stopczyński doesn't come directly from that; more likely, it comes from a place name such as Stopka or Stopki, and that name in turn derived from the root meaning "foot," perhaps because of some geographical feature or landmark that reminded people of a foot. There are at least three places in Poland that the name Stopczyński could come from (and possibly many more too small to show up on my maps, or places that have changed names in the centuries since the surnames were established): Stopka in Bydgoszcz province, Stopki in Olsztyn province, and Stopki in Siedlce province. Obviously I have no way of knowing which of these a particular Stopczyński family was connected with; the most one can say, without considerable detailed research into the individual family's history, is that the surname derives from a place name, and Stopka and Stopki fit the pattern.

As of 1990 there were 577 Polish citizens named Stopczyński, with the largest numbers in the provinces of: Warsaw (57), Ciechanow (87), Lodz (58), Szczecin (44), and Wroclaw (58). There are smaller numbers scattered in many other provinces, but those are the ones with the largest concentrations. I'm afraid I don't see any particular pattern to that distribution, so we can't specify one area of Poland and say that's where your family probably came from. (This, by the way, is how it usually is with Polish surnames; there are comparatively few that offer clear leads as to exactly where they originated). I should add that I have no access to further data such as first names or addresses for any of the people living in the provinces mentioned.

… My mother who lives with me came from Oberniki, her mother had died when she was 8 months old, and very little of her she married a man (my grandfather who's name was Mihalski). They had 3 children, Roman, twins Lokardia, Cecylia (my mother).

I'm afraid I can't find an Oberniki on the map, but there are two Oborniki's, one in Poznan province, one (also called Oborniki Slaskie) in Wroclaw province... Mihalski comes from the name Michael (standard Polish form Michał, where ł represents the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our W). Michalski is a very common Polish name, as of 1990 there were 51,325 Poles by that name, and large numbers of them lived all over the country. There was no one who spelled the name Mihalski. That, however, is not surprising. In Polish the ch and h are pronounced exactly the same, so a name spelled with a ch can very easily be spelled with h instead without any significance at all to the change. Until this century most Poles were illiterate, so there was no great pressure to spell names uniformly. Once the Communists set up compulsory elementary education for all Poles, there began to be more emphasis on spelling names the "right" way. So a great many of those Michalski's now living in Poland probably had ancestors whose names were spelled Mihalski in records... What I am saying is that in doing your research, you want to keep an eye out for both spellings, because from a practical point of view they're both the same name.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… When you said the Polish name Bendyk probably derived from the first name "Benedict" you really didn't tell me what that name meant. Also we have two other names coming up a lot in the family, Ptaszek and Walaszkiewicz. When you have time I would greatly appreciate any description you may be able to obtain on them.

I'm sorry, I deal so much with obscure names that I get to assuming people are familiar with the meanings of more familiar English names, such as Benedict. It comes from Latin benedictus and means "blessed."

Ptaszek comes from the root ptak, "bird"; ptaszek is a diminutive form, meaning more or less "little bird, birdey" or "son of the bird." It's hard to say exactly why a person might get this name – perhaps they lived near birds, raised birds, had mannerisms that reminded people of birds. In any event, as of 1990 there were 2,234 Poles named Ptaszek, so it's a reasonably common name and distributed fairly evenly all over the country.

Walaszkiewicz could come from several different roots. With this one it makes a big difference what the original Polish form was: if the L has a slash through it, the name means "son of the geldling," and as you might imagine, it's not a very common name (only 66 in Poland as of 1990). But if the L doesn't have the slash, it could be a name meaning roughly "son of little Wal," where Wal is a nickname for several different common first names, including Walenty, Walerian, etc. This, too, is rare, only 36 Poles by that name in 1990. Or it could mean "son of the Wallachian," referring to a tribe of people who lived roughly in what is now Romania. So for this name there is no one simple, obvious answer; different people with this name might descend from folks who got it for different reasons.

… My great grandfather came from Szaflary, Poland which to the best of my ability I came up with south west Poland. You send most people with the name Bendyk are in the Mid central part of Poland. How did you find this?

I have a 10-volume set listing every surname in Poland as of 1990, telling how many Poles had that name in the whole country, then breaking it down by province. Sometimes this info is helpful, usually it's not -- there's no real concentration in any one area. If I think the data might be helpful, I mention it; if it doesn't tell us anything, I skip it. I don't have access to any further details such as first names and addresses; the Polish government agency that allowed its database to be used for the 10-volume set refuses to give anyone further details. So the most I can give anyone is data on surname frequency and distribution by province.

In this case, I only mentioned it to show that more people named Bendyk are in mid-central Poland than anywhere else; but of course, that doesn't mean that's where your family came from. If 100 live in Warsaw province and 2 live in Wroclaw province, the 2 in Wroclaw province might still turn out to be the ones you're related to! It's a matter of probabilities and odds. In my answers I emphasize the high-probability approach because by the nature of things I can't help with specifics. But I always try to remind people they should go mainly by the info they've uncovered; you're far more of an expert on your family than I can ever hope to be.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… Does the name "Przedzienkowski" have any particular meaning? Is it a common Polish surname?

This is a very rare name. As of 1990 there were 21 Polish citizens who spelled the name Przedzienkowski, 4 who spelled it Przedzieńkowski, and 19 who spelled it Przedziękowski (ę stands for the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and usually pronounced roughly as en) – all these spellings would be pronounced almost identically. The 19 Przedziękowski's lived in the provinces of Elblag (10) and Torun (9), and the Przedzienkowski's showed 3 in Elblag province and 8 in Torun province, so those seem to be the areas where this name is most common. (I do not have access to any further data such as first names or addresses).

I'm not quite sure what the ultimate root is -- David Zincavage may be right about the "spin thread" root, but if so I'd expect the initial nasal vowel to show up somewhere, i. e., Przędziękowski or Prządziękowski. As it is, I can't tell whether the name should be broken down to prze-, "across, through, very, thoroughly" + dzięk-, "to thank," or przed-, "before, pre-" + dzień, "day." Part of the problem is it's hard to say which of those spelling is the "correct" one; if we knew Przedziękowski, or instance, was the one that most accurately reflected the name's origin, it would appear to mean "one from the place where they thank you thoroughly"! Somehow I don't find that convincing.

But whatever the ultimate root, I think David's right that the name originally referred to a place of origin. I haven't spotted many likely candidates -- there's a Przedzeń in Kalisz province, that might work, but I kind of doubt it. Probably the surname did refer to the name of a place beginning Przedziękow-, but in the centuries since the surname was established, that place has vanished, been absorbed by another community, changed its name, etc.

So the short answer is, it's a rare name, and it probably referred to a place -- but good luck tracking that place down!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am a member of the PGSA and also have purchased your book the second edition on the Orgins and Meanings of Polish Names, however I still know nothing of my grandfather's name Josef Rakowicz. He was born 30 Nov. 1871 in Sierki, Łomża, Poland. I would appreciate any help that you could give me on this name. Thank you so much for the wonderful work that you are doing.

I certainly appreciate your kind words! I hope the material I write is some help to you and others trying to do genealogical research.

Rakowicz comes from the suffix -owicz, which means "son of," plus the root rak, "crab." So the literal meaning is "son of the crab." It is tough to say exactly why a person would end up with such a name. Perhaps the name was first applied to the sons of a fellow who caught and sold crabs, or who loved to eat crabs, or who walked like a crab or somehow otherwise reminded people of one. This name appears in records as far back as 1354, so it can be hard to figure out exactly what it meant centuries ago -- and the name probably originated independently in different places and times, so that it may have had different meanings in different cases. But there was some connection with "crab," that's the one thing that seems pretty certain.

As of 1990 there were 558 Polish citizens with the name Rakowicz, living in virtually every province but with larger numbers in the provinces of Białystok (101), Bydgoszcz (46), Pila (72), and Poznan (119). Sierki is now in Białystok province, so some of those 101 Rakowicz'es in that province may be relatives. Unfortunately I do not have access to more detailed info such as first names and addresses -- what I've given here is all I have... The interesting thing is that Rakowicz is only moderately common -- 558 isn't all that many -- yet the name it comes from, Rak, is quite common; there were 11,730 Rak's in Poland as of 1990. I haven't a clue why there'd be such a disparity!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… Blase Rekowski born 1852 in poland where? family names? any imformation would be great.

I'm afraid I don't have enough information to be able to help much with individuals. Relatively few Polish surnames provide clues that are much use in tracking down where a family came from; most often you have to have found out where they came from through researching records (naturalization papers, ship passenger lists, parish records in this country, etc.).

Rekowski is no exception. As of 1990 there were 2,313 Polish citizens by this name, living all over the country. However, the greatest concentration of them by far is in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (528), Gdansk (970), and Slupsk (308). This the part of northwestern Poland associated with an ethnic group called the Kaszubi, in English the Kashubs -- they are closely related to Poles, but have their own language and culture that set them apart. In terms of linguistic origin, Rekowski is probably a northern Polish version of the very common name Rakowski, which just means "one from Raków/Rakowo" or other villages with similar names, of which there are a great many. So where most Poles would say "Raków" or "Rakowo" or "Rakowski," folks in northern Poland tend to turn that a into an e and say "Reków, Rekowo, Rekowski." And the Kashubs are the people among whom this name is most common.

There is an organization called the Kashubian Association of North America (KANA). I suggest you check into this, it's quite possible they can give you some useful clues and info.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.  

… My name is ... Porambo, when my grandfather came to america our surname was changed from Poremba. He settled in the city of Lansford, Pennsylvania at the turn of the century. Oddly enough there were about 5 different families who lived in Lansford with the Porambo surname who were not related. I have no family to ask about our name.

The name Poremba is also spelled Poręba, where ę is the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced somewhat like en or, before b or p, like em -- so that Poremba and Poręba are pronounced the same, and that's why the spelling can go either way. The name comes from the term poręba, "clearing in the woods," and probably referred to where a family lived or to the fact that they made a living by chopping down trees. As of 1990 there were 3,036 Polish citizens named Poręba and 483 more who spelled the name Poremba, so it is a moderately common name. Poręba's lived all over Poland, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (254), Nowy Sacz (966), Tarnow (293) -- thus the name is most common in southcentral to southeastern Poland. Historically this was an area where people were often given charters by local lords to found new settlements by going in to the woods and clearing spaces for buildings; such settlements were often granted relief from taxes or other payments for 10-20 years so they could get off to a good start. This surname probably refers in most cases to people connected with such a settlement.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I wondered if you could be so kind as to tell me information about the surname Pilitowski, on my great Grandmothers tombstone it states Pilitowska. On her insurance paperwork it states that she was from Zalesz, Poland but I have never been able to find such a place.

Well, first the -ska/-ski business. You may already know this, but in Polish names ending in -ski change the ending when referring to females: it's Pan Kurski (Mr. Kurski) but Pani Kurska (Mrs. Kurska). So, as you rightly assumed, Pilitowski is the standard form of the name.

Names ending in -owski usually refer to a connection of some sort between a person or family and a place with a similar name ending in -y or -ów or -owo. So we'd expect Pilitowski to mean "one from Pilitów or Pilitowo." I notice on my maps only one place that qualifies, a village named Pilitowo, just a few km. south of the town of Plonsk in Ciechanow province -- my guess is the parish church in Plonsk is where folks from Pilitowo would go to register births, deaths, marriages, etc. I don't know whether any records would survive that you could link to your family, but it might be worth a look.

As of 1990 there were 280 Polish citizens named Pilitowski; larger numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (91), Ciechanow (78), Pila (22), Płock (20), and Szczecin (19), with smaller numbers scattered in a few other provinces. That distribution pattern shows that the name is most common in central and northcentral Poland, which is consistent with a Pilitowo connection.

"Zalesz, Poland" is tough because there's no exact match, but there are literally dozens of places this might refer to. There are jillions of villages called "Zalesie" (literally, "beyond the woods," quite a few named Zaleze ("beyond the bog"), etc. There is, for instance, a Zalesie some km. north of Plonsk, and thus not very far from Pilitowo -- it might be the place you're looking for. But I must caution you not to get your hopes up: there really are literally dozen's of Zalesie's, and other names that could easily be turned into "Zalesz." Odds are you could pick any spot in Poland at random and you'll find a Zalesie or Zaleze nearby. Still, this one might be worth a closer look. The nearest place with a Catholic parish church appears to be Glinojeck; if I were you, I'd go to the nearest LDS Family History Center, see if the records for that parish (Glinojeck in Ciechanow province) are available on microfilm, and ask to have them sent to the FHC for you to look through. No guarantees, you understand, it's a matter of playing the odds.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I would like some information on the name Pisarcik. Is it related to the Polish name Piszczek?

No, there's no connection. Piszczek comes from a basic root meaning "squeal," and probably derives directly from the noun piszczek, "one who plays pipes or fife." Pisarcik looks to me like a Czech equivalent of the Polish name Pisarczyk (they are pronounced almost exactly the same) -- both mean "son of the writer, clerk, scribe." Pisarczyk is a fairly common name in Poland, there were 2,015 Poles by that name in 1990; as of 1990 there was no one in Poland named Pisarcik. The root pisar-, "writer, clerk, scribe," and the suffix -cik/-czyk, "son of," are used in several Slavic languages, so I can't be sure Czech is the one Pisarcik comes from -- but it strikes me as the most likely. Of course, it is also conceivable the name may have been Polish Pisarczyk spelled differently because of some external influence.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I am having difficulty in finding anything on the surnames Pieszchala and Turack if you can help me with these names I would surely appreciate. These were my g-parents and my mother died young so I have nothing to go on!

Pieszchala is almost certainly a spelling variation of the name Pierzchała; the ł is pronounced like our w. In Polish the combination rz is usually pronounced like "zh" in "Zhivago," and sz like the "sh" in "ship"; but under certain conditions the rz "devoices," as linguists call it, to the "sh" sound, so it sounds like Pieszchała, and that's why the name is sometimes spelled that way. To our ears it would sound like "pyesh-HA-wah." According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut, this name, first seen in legal records from 1429, comes from the verb pierzchać, "to flee, run away," and the suffix -ała usually implies continuous repetition of an action, so Pierzchała would mean "one always running away."

I'm not sure this name has to be considered uncomplimentary -- as of 1990 there were 4,548 Poles by this name, so it's kind of common, I doubt it would be that common if it were necessarily thought of as negatively. In any case, it is found all over the country, so I can't really point to one area and say "That's where it comes from"... The spelling Pieszchala is interesting, because only Poles would turn that rz into sz (a German would turn it into sch, an English-speaker into sh), so that suggests the name may have been spelled that way in Poland, and not changed when your ancestors emigrated. But as of 1990 there were only 8 Polish citizens who spelled the name that way, so I don't think the spelling is going to give you any leads. Until after World War I most Poles were illiterate, so spelling tended to be far less standardized; but once most Poles were taught to write, the "correct" spellings of names became standard. In other words, more than 50 years ago a lot of those Pierzchała's might have sometimes been spelled "Pieszchała," so the spelling itself isn't a reliable clue.

Turack might be a couple of names: it could be Turacki with the I dropped, or it could be Turak with the k changed to ck under German or English influence. Either way, we're dealing with a rare name; as of 1990 there were 3 Poles named Turacki (all 3 living in the province of Ostrołęka in northeastern Poland), and there were 28 named Turak (in the provinces of Biala Podlaska 5, Katowice 4, Lublin 5, Suwałki 1, Tarnow 9, Torun 4). I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I give here is all I have. If you have any luck in finding passenger ship records, parish records, naturalization papers, something like that which gives you more details on where in Poland your ancestors come from, at that point the rareness of the name starts to work in your favor -- if you do find someone by that name, the odds are fairly good he/she is related! In any case, according to Rymut the name comes from either tur, "auerochs," or turać, "to roll." The -ak suffix seems to me more likely to mean "son of" and the name probably means "son of Tur," with "Tur" being a kind of nickname for someone big, strong, hairy, like an auerochs. Rymut says the name Turak appears in legal records as early as 1488, so the name may not be common but it's old!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… Do you have any info on the name "Patora?" A surname book in the public library listed my former surname as meaning evil, clumsy, and inept. Were we all a bunch of clumsy evil people? How can this be possible? Did we attempt to overthrow the government and get punished with the surname?

I don't have anything really firm on Patora. In his book on Polish surnames Kazimierz Rymut mentions Patorek and Patorski as coming from the Latin term pater, "father," and if he's right about that, it's highly likely Patora comes from the same root -- from a linguistic point of view, Patora would almost certainly come from the same root that generated Patorek and Patorski. Derivation of a Polish surname from a Latin word may seem unlikely, but you have to remember that many Poles were Catholic, so when they went to Mass or had sacraments administered they would hear Latin words and naturally associate them with things holy. The word pater showed up all the time in the Catholic liturgy, referring to an earthly father and especially to a heavenly Father, so the word would not be unknown to Poles and would have a certain class and sanctity associated with it. It also was the Latin title by which a priest was called, literally "Father." So all in all, it's not that far-fetched a notion that pater could end up generating a Polish surname, perhaps associated with a relative of a priest, or a rather religious father. I, for one, consider this the likely derivation of the name.

I don't know where that surname book got that meaning of "evil, clumsy, inept," but I get mad when I hear from people who've been given utterly false information from so-called "experts." It makes me angry that there are people out there running their mouths without knowing what they're talking about!... OK, end of tirade, back to the subject. The only possible link I could find was a dialect term patorny that means "loathsome, hideous." It could be connected with your name, but it seems to be rare in Polish; and I see no reason to assume the name has to mean something awful (although I must admit, many Polish names do have pretty ghastly meanings!).

As of 1990 there were 1,144 Polish citizens named Patora; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Lodz (571), Płock (117), and Sieradz (154), with much smaller numbers scattered all over the country. This indicates the name tends to be concentrated in the Lodz-Płock-Sieradz area, which is right in central Poland (in its current boundaries). I'm afraid I don't have access to any further data such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is what I have.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...His name was Michal Szysz, he did tell me he was born in Volca, Novogrodek, Poland in 1922. His parents were Maksym Szysz and Helen Wysocka.

I can't find a source that gives a definitive answer on this. I found two roots that are plausible sources for this name; I can't promise they're right, but I think odds are good one or the other is applicable.

One is a term szysz, apparently an archaic or dialect term, meaning "army volunteer." There is also a term szyszak meaning "helmet," I'm not sure whether it's related, but it probably is. If this root is the right one, it suggests an ancestor was connected with the army as a volunteer. My sources suggest this term is used more toward the northeast of Poland, and that seems to fit what you say -- more about that in a moment.

The other possibility is that Szysz- comes as a nickname from first names such as Sylwan (Sylvan), Sylwester (Silvester), and Szymon (Simon). It's well established that Poles often formed nicknames by taking the first couple of sounds of a popular first name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes. And S- and Sz- often alternate in names. So Szysz could very well have started as a nickname for some popular first name, and the three mentioned above are the best candidates. If this is right, you can't say Szysz means anything, any more than "Ted" or "Joe" means anything.

As of 1990 there were 443 Polish citizens named Szysz; there were some living in virtually every province, but the larger numbers showed up in the provinces of Biala Podlaska (57), Białystok (29), Chelm (45), Elblag (45), Lublin (24), Olsztyn (35), Siedlce (25), and Warsaw (39). A glance at a map shows that the name is more common in eastern and northeastern Poland -- that fits in with your info, since "Novogrodek" probably refers to Novogrudok in Belarus (Belorussia). In other words, the area where your father was born was part of Poland then, but now is probably in the country of Belarus. This name may be more common in Belarus than Poland, but I have no data on that; what data i do have is for Poland in its modern boundaries, and it shows this name tends to appear most often in the parts of Poland near the border with Belarus.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Hello. Any information you could provide me on Wietrzychowska and/or Naskrent would be greatly appreciated. I'm having very little luck in my research.

Wietrzychowska is just the feminine form of Wietrzychowski, the ultimate root of which is the word wiatr, "wind." However, words ending in -owski usually indicate a connection of a family with a place that had a name ending in -ów or -owo or something similar. There is a village Wietrzychowo in the province of Olsztyn, and that's one place name the surname Wietrzychowski could refer to. Other possibilities are Wietrzychowice in Tarnów and Wloclawek provinces, and there could have been any number of places too small to show up on maps that could generate surnames. So the most we can say is that this surname means "person from Wietrzychowo" or some place with a similar name, and that place name comes from the root meaning "wind." This is not a common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were only 74 Wietrzychowski's, living in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (19), Konin (12), Koszalin (5), Leszno (11), Pila 5, Szczecin (6), Wroclaw (16); unfortunately I have no further details such as first names or addresses.

Naskrent can also be spelled Naskręt, with the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced much like en; any name with ę is likely to be spelled with ę or en, and any name with en is likely to be spelled with ę. As of 1990 there were 201 Poles who used the spelling Naskrent and 1,501 who used Naskręt. I don't have solid information on exactly what the name comes from, but it probably is connected to the expression naskrzętnie, "crossways," or na, "on" + skręt, "turn, veer." Of the Naskręt's, the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Leszno (522), Poznan (372), and Wroclaw (98) -- so the name seems most common in western Poland (the pattern is the same for Naskrent).

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Please, see if you can check a surname of Bielenda

I can find no source with definitive information on the meaning of the name. There are a bunch of Polish names that come from the root bial-/biel-, "white," and this may well be one of them. There is a suffix -enda sometimes added to Polish roots to make names, so biel- + -enda = Bielenda is at least plausible. If that's how the name originated, I suppose it would be something like "Whitey" in English, maybe a nickname for a person with very fair skin or light-colored hair. All this is a very plausible educated guess, however, and it could well be the name comes from something else -- I just don't have enough data to say.

If it does come from something else, it's worth noting that there is a Ukrainian verb belendity meaning "chat, chatter, stutter." That could very well be the source of this surname, because as of 1990 there were 345 Polish citizens named Bielenda. The largest concentration by far (204) lived in the province of Rzeszów in southeastern Poland, with the next-largest number (23) in the province of Tarnobrzeg, immediately to the north of Rzeszów -- and there were a few living here and there in provinces scattered all over Poland. So it would appear the name probably originated in southeastern Poland, and that's an area where Polish and Ukrainian mix to a considerable extent. So a person from that area, even though he's a Pole, might well have a name influenced by Ukrainian.

As I say, I don't have enough to prove anything either way, and this name may well come from the root meaning "white." But in view of the data on geographical distribution, I lean toward the "chatter, stutter" meaning. I suspect Bielenda started as a nickname for a person who tended to chatter away, or perhaps stuttered. If you would like to try to get something more definite, I suggest writing the Anthroponymic Workshop in Kraków.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Is it possible that the name Kissel was originally somthing else but changed when the family arrived. Also the same for Zajac. I've grown up being told that both are of Polish origin.

Zając (pronounced "ZAH-yonts") probably has not been changed, except for one slight difference: in Polish the second a is written as an a with a tail under it, and pronounced much like on, so that this name is often spelled Zajonc. It comes from the word zając, "hare," and is a very common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 48,349 Polish citizens named Zając, living all over the country... When people named Zając came to this country, in many cases the tail under the a was dropped and no further change was made. It is thoroughly plausible that that's the case here.

Kissel is harder, there's no basis on which to decide for sure. It certainly could be changed, for instance from Polish Kisiel, which would sound a little like "KISH-el" -- this is a common name from a word for a kind of fruit jelly; and as of 1990 there were 9,893 Poles by that name. But we can't rule out the possibility that this was a German name Kissel or Kuessel, or a Polish name Kiszel, etc.. In terms of numbers, Kisiel is by far the most common, so the odds are the name was originally Kisiel. But you can see that we don't have enough info to conclude that for sure.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am interested in the origins of two names. The first is Kempka and the other is Yackish. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Kempka comes from the Polish word kępa, "cluster of trees; holm" (ę is the Polish nasal vowel written as e with a tail under it and pronounced much like "en" or, before b or p, "em"); in other words, Kępka and Kempka are alternative spellings of the same name. The -ka is a diminutive suffix, "little __." So this surname probably started as an indication of where a family lived, kind of a shorthand for "the folks who live by the little cluster of trees." There must have been a lot of folks who lived near such clusters -- as of 1990 there were 5,213 Polish citizens named Kępka, and another 814 who used the spelling Kempka. They lived all over Poland, I see no significant pattern to the name's frequency and distribution; that just makes sense, this name could get started anywhere people spoke Polish and lived near trees, that is, anywhere in Poland!

Yackish is a tough one because the name has obviously been Anglicized -- for instance, Polish doesn't use Y at the start of words, also it doesn't use the combination "sh." Going strictly by phonetics, the Polish spelling would be Jakisz, and there is such a name, but it's quite rare; as of 1990 there were 24 Poles named Jakisz. They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 7, Białystok 1, Katowice 2, Kraków 1, Lublin 2, Opole 2, Szczecin 5, Wroclaw 4 (unfortunately I have no access to further details such as first names or addresses). The name Jakisz appears in records as far back as 1579, and is one of many surnames that started out as a nickname for people with first names beginning with Jak-, including Jakub (Jacob), Jakim (= Joachim), etc. Poles loved to make nicknames by taking the first part of a popular first name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes. So basically Jakisz would be kind of like "Jake's son" in English.

Of course, without further research there's no way to tell if Jakisz is the name you're looking for -- it just seems to be the best match, based on the info you've given me. Whatever the original form was, it probably originated the same way. In any case, if the name starts Yack- in English, it probably was Jak- in Polish.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I have just started out researching my family name but have run into a great problem. My surname is Raschke, my family hails from Poland as far back as I can see, but there is also talk of my family being from Germany. Poznan is the accepted area that my family is supposedly from but I have learned that there are three distinct lines of Raschke, one of Polish origin (meaning Red breasted robin), one from Germany (meaning councillor in german) and one from Bohemia (alderman) ... Can you enlighten me as to what the name might mean, where in the area they may be from and any other info you can provide such as contacts, addresses, etc.

The only information I have is that German name expert Hans Bahlow said in his book Deutsches Namenlexikon that Raschke is Slavic in origin, a short form or nickname of the names Radslav or Raslav; Polish expert Kazimierz Rymut agrees that names beginning with Rasz- (which is how Poles would spell "Rasch-" phonetically) comes from the names Radosław and Rasław. Poles liked to form nicknames by taking the first couple of sounds from a first name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes: thus Ra- from Radosław and Rasław + -sz- = Rasz-. In Polish and most other Slavic languages the suffixes -ek, -ka, -ko, etc. are diminutives, so that Raszek or Raszko or Raszka would mean "little Rasz, son of Rasz." So the surname Raschke is a German version of Raszek or Raszka or Raszko, all meaning little more than "son of Radosław or Rasław." The original name might have been Polish or it might have been Czech, but it was definitely Slavic.

As of 1990 there were only 8 Polish citizens who used the German spelling Raschke, but there were 1,780 Poles with the name Raszka and 218 named Raszke (as well as 865 named Raszkiewicz, which means "son of Raszek/Raszka/Raszko").

I only have info on the linguistic origins of names, and nothing at all as far as contacts or addresses, so this may not be much help to you. But it's all I have access, and perhaps it will help a little. I hope so, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I was wondering if you had any clue how Latocha came to be a Polish surname, what it would mean, etc. It is often mistaken for a Spanish surname, but I have been assured, by my relatives here and in Poland that it is infact a Polish name. I know it has also been spelled Latocja. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Many Polish words and names sound as if they could come from Spanish or Italian, it's not surprising people are sometimes misled. Sometimes the exact same words or names develop independently in different languages, purely by coincidence. Latocha may be a Spanish name too, but it definitely can be a Polish surname; it appears in Polish records as far back as 1319. Surname experts say it derives from the term latocha, "year-old calf" (from the root lat, meaning "summer" or "year," thus a latocha was an animal that had already seen one summer). This was apparently used as a nickname for people sometimes, and eventually became established as a surname -- and not a rare one, either, since in 1990 there were 1,485 Polish citizens named Latocha. They lived all over the country, with larger numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (62), Katowice (466), Piotrków (92), and Tarnów (440); these provinces are in southcentral Poland, but that's the only pattern I can see to their distribution -- there's no concentration in one small area that would let us say "Here is where this surname started."

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

As you can see, my surname is Szycman. I am told that this was changed in the early 1950s from Schutzmann. From the look of that, I think it may have German origins. A bit scary, since knowing what the Germans did to the Poles. Have you any information on either name?

Yes, Szycman is clearly a Polish phonetic spelling of German Schuetzmann -- Polish sz is pronounced the same as German sch (like English "sh") and y is the closest Poles can come to the sound of German U umlaut (ü or ue). This is not unusual, there have always been large numbers of Germans living in Poland (there are thousands and thousands of Hoffmans, for instance), although after World War II a lot of them left, for obvious reasons!

German Schuetz- can refer in some cases to the root meaning "shoot," or to the root schützen, "protect, guard," so I'm not sure whether Schuetzmann would mean "marksman" or "watchman, guard," and neither of my sources on German names really settles the question definitively. But from what I see, the root with no umlaut, just Schutz-, is more likely to mean "guard," and with the umlaut, Schütz- or Schuetz-, probably refers to "shoot." So I believe this name started out meaning "marksman, archer." Once Germans by that name came to live in Poland, it was only a matter of time before the Polish influence began to affect the spelling of the name, and eventually Szycman was the result.

As of 1990 there were 88 Polish citizens named Szycman, living in the following provinces: Warsaw (10), Bydgoszcz (3), Elblag (8), Gdansk (50), Gorzów (14), Koszalin (1), Sieradz (2). Clearly Gdansk, in the area that used to be ruled by the Germans, is the main center for Szycman's. Unfortunately, I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses... Interestingly enough, despite all the bad blood between Germans and Poles especially after World War II, there are still 25 Poles named Schuetzmann, (Bydgoszcz province 6, Gdansk province 19), and 49 named Schützmann, with the u umlaut (Bydgoszcz 2, Gdansk 40, Lodz 2, Suwałki 5). It's dangerous making assumptions, but it's not entirely impossible that many of the Szycman's and Schuetzmann's and Schützmann's are related -- it was not unusual for different members of a family to come to use different spellings of the same last name. You shouldn't assume that's true, since Schützmann is probably a pretty common German surname -- but it is at least possible. If you go looking for Szycman's, don't ignore people named Schuetzmann or Schützmann just because of the different spelling!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am searching for the surname Bialousz. My grandfather was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1906 and immigrated here with his family at the age of three months. Have you located this name in any of your research? I have been able to find absolutely nothing.

The name comes from the basic Slavic root bial-/biel-, "white." The form -usz- usually comes from the root ucho, "ear," so this name seems to mean "white-ear." I'm not sure how such a name got started -- perhaps as a reference to a horse or dog or animal with a white spot on its ear? And then it might be applied to the man who owned it? I don't know, none of this really convinces me, and yet Białousz (where ł is pronounced like our "w") should mean "white-ear."

This name is not extremely common in Poland, but I wouldn't say it was very rare, either. As of 1990 there were 267 Polish citizens named Białousz, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 41, Bielsko-Biala 4, Czestochowa 4, Elblag 38, Gdansk 6, Jelenia Gora 29, Katowice 19, Kraków 3, Leszno 11, Lublin 2, Olsztyn 30, Ostrołęka 42, Płock 2, Siedlce 8, Skierniewice 12, Szczecin 5, Tarnobrzeg 2, Walbryzch 1, Wloclawek 1, Zielona Gora 7. (I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses -- this is all I have). Interestingly, there were 761 Poles named Białous, which appears to mean the same thing; I would have thought Białousz would have been the more common form.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...My mother's maiden name, Swiezy, has been overlooked by us. Any information you can give on this name?

According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut, Świeży (pronounced something like "shvyeh-zhee") is a Polish word meaning "fresh, new, in good condition." As of 1990 there were 480 Polish citizens who used this name in the spelling Świerzy (which is pronounced exactly the same) and 266 who spelled it Świeży. The largest number of Świeży's lived in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (25), Czestochowa (22), Katowice (79), and Kraków (87) -- all in southcentral Poland -- with fewer than 10 living in several other provinces.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I didn't find my surname on your current list on the website. Is it possible to give me the meaning and origins of the surname Bobrowski? I've been getting conflicting information on this...

There are over 600,000 Polish surnames, so it's not surprising I haven't quite gotten to them all on the Website 8-).

The root of this name is bóbr, "beaver," but names ending in -owski usually started as a reference to a connection between a person or family and a place name, often ending in -ów or something similar. There are quite a few villages in Poland named Bobrowa and Bobrowo -- all of which just mean "place of the beavers" -- and the name Bobrowski could get started from any of them. So basically Bobrowski means "person from Bobrowa/Bobrowo," or "person from the beaver place."

Since there are quite a few different places that could spawn this name, it's not surprising it's a moderately common one -- in 1990 there were 5,874 Polish citizens named Bobrowski, living all over the country.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... What can you tell me about the surname: Olejasz?

This is a variant spelling of the name Olejarz, which comes from the word olejarz, "one who makes or sells oils." In Polish the rz is usually pronounced like the "s" in "measure," but at the end of words it tends to devoice to the sound of "sh," which is spelled sz in Polish. So that's why the name Olejarz could easily end up being spelled Olejasz -- that's what it sounds like.

As of 1990 there were 2,746 Polish citizens named Olejarz, living all over the country. There were only 20 who spelled the name Olejasz, living in the provinces of Warsaw (6), Biala Podlaska (3), Rzeszów (1), and Wroclaw (10). Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, so what I've given you here is all I have... It may be the people named Olejasz are the ones you should look for, but I would caution against jumping to that conclusion. Most Poles couldn't read and write back in the days of emigration, so names could get spelled any old way and people had no way of knowing better. Once the Communists took over and forced everyone to get at least an elementary education, more could read and write and name spellings tended to get standardized. A lot of folks who'd gone by Olejasz one time, Olejarz another, would have started spelling it the standard way, Olejarz, all the time. So as you do your research, be aware that the name's spelling may change along the way, and you may well find it spelled either way, even with your own ancestors.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...In the 10 volume name listing from 1990 or in your research, have you ever seen this name. My cousins say that it was originally pronounced "whew-jhin-ski"...with a very soft initial "whew" sound...perhaps closer to "hyou-jhin-ski"... Any suggestions?? Perhaps some initial letters were dropped when they came to America??

That's certainly possible. It would explain that initial sound your cousins say it originally had. On the other hand, as of 1990 there were 87 Polish citizens named Udziński, with the vast majority living in the province of Torun (I have no access to further data such as first names and addresses, unfortunately). So it's also possible the name was spelled as shown, and that initial sound they describe was just some local dialectal or regional pronunciation... Or it could be the name was originally Chudziński or Judziński or Łudziński or something else. There's just not enough info for me to say anything for sure.

If you can't come up with more data, I'd suggest operating on the assumption that Udziński is correct, and see if you can get a line on some of those Udziński's living in Torun province. That's not a sure thing, but weighing probabilities, it seems the best bet.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am attached to the Dictionary Research Centre at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. I am writing a book on The Multicultural Names of Australia. At the moment I am struggling through Polish names, with the help of your marvelous book.

They do present a bit of a challenge, don't they?

...As a fellow Onomastician I thought you might appreciate what has happened in Australia from the point of view of surnames. Since the end of WWII and the opening of Australia to European Immigration, the ratio of Anglo-Saxon the "foreign" names has changed from 10% to almost 50-50, especialy now that Asian immigration has increased so dramatically. It has all happened so quickly that "older" Australians find the plethora of new names bewildering. Hence my book.

I had no idea immigration to Australia had been so heavy -- although now, considering the matter, it certainly should come as no surprise! And I can well believe "older" Australians with Anglo roots would find it confusing and intimidating to have all these new ethnic elements to deal with.

...You explain everything so well that I have hesitated for many weeks to ask such a trivial question, but!! on page 24 of your second edition, you talk about Dorociak (Dorota + iak) which I assume means Dorota's daughter but I cannot find anywhere in the book which explains 'iak'. How it came about and why etc. I have the name Jakubiak to explain and I have said that it means Jacob's daughter, (you list it under Jakob on page 274) but I like to explain more about the etymology of the words etc. Would you mind very much letting me know more about -iak?

So much of my correspondence is with people who need to have the basic concepts explained to them, it will be a pleasure discussing this with an onomastician!

Essentially, the suffix -iak is the same thing as -ak; both are diminutive suffixes, but -iak differs only in that it involves softening or palatalization of the root's final consonant. Thus in some names we see -ak added directly to a root with no palatalization, e. g., Nowak, Pawlak; and in others we see the palatalization, e. g., Dorota + -iak = Dorociak, Jakub + -iak = Jakubiak, Szymon + -iak = Szymoniak.

The basic meaning of -ak/-iak is diminutive, but especially when applied to first names, it tends to have a patronymic significance. Thus "Jakubiak" means "little Jakub," but much the same way as if someone saw me walk by and said "There's Fred" (Fred's my middle name and it's the one I go by, I hope this isn't too confusing!) and then a moment later my son toddled along and he said "There goes little Fred," i. e., "Fred's son." So in most cases where -ak/-iak is appended to the root of a first name we can translate it as "son of." However, it's not used exclusively in that way, for instance there is a noun "Krakowiak" which means "one from Krakow." Polish suffixes rarely have one and only one meaning (unfortunately; life would be much easier if they did!).

I'm not sure why sometimes the suffix is added with palatalization and why it's not. No doubt Polish linguists have addressed this very question, and somewhere in my sources there is probably a learned article on this very subject. But I can't find it at the moment -- and besides, to make sense of it one would probably need a Ph.D. in Slavic historical linguistics. I think it suffices for our purposes to say that the suffix can be added either way, without palatalization (Pawel + -ak = Pawlak) or with it; and if it's added with palatalization, that is indicated either by interposing an -i- (Jakub + -i- + ak) or by modifying the root's final consonant (Dorota + -ak to Doroti- + -ak to Doroci- + -ak = Dorociak). There are ways to tell which final root consonants add -i- and which change the letter, but again, this is probably more information than you want!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...My wife's great-grandmother was a Waleria Erland from Lodz. It doesn't seem particularly Polish, but are there any other people with this last name in Poland?

As of 1990 there were 19 Polish citizens named Erland; 1 lived in Warsaw province, the other 18 lived in Łódz province. So there are still people by that name in the general area of Łódz (not necessarily in the city itself, but at least in the province of which Łódz is the capital). Unfortunately I have no access to further details such as first names, addresses, etc. Just possibly you could have a search done of the Łódz province phone directory, perhaps one of those 18 has a phone, and that would yield an address. I believe the Polish Genealogical Society of America can do this for a reasonable fee, or if you are persistent and ingenious you may be able to do it for yourself. It's the only way I know of that you might get an address for these Erland's.

...Her great-great-grandmother is a Teofila Swiontkowska from Warsaw. Is this name, either in this spelling or in the spelling Swiątkowska, a common one?

Yes, this is a fairly common name, although it is more common in the spelling Świątkowski -- both that spelling and Świontkowski are pronounced the same, something like "shvyont-KOFF-skee." As of 1990 there were 5,793 Poles who spelled the name Świątkowski, as opposed to only 48 who spelled it Świontkowski.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Interested in finding info on Antoni Chichlowski born in Poland in 1882. Came to U.S. around 1912-1915 with wife Michalina and daughter Estelle. Lived in Trenton N.J. where my father was born (...Chciklowski) note last name change. Family then moved to Providence R.I. area where Antoni and brother split. No known area where brother settled. Family fianlly settled in Chicopee/Springfield Mass. where I was born.

As of 1990 there were 116 Polish citizens named Chichłowski (the ł stands for the Polish slashed l, pronounced like our w); they lived in the provinces of Warsaw (6), Gdansk (3), Gorzów (17), Katowice (1), Kielce (21), Konin (6), Legnica (6), Leszno (5), Opole (4), Poznan (7), Siedlce (3), Suwałki (2), Szczecin (12), Wroclaw (23). I don't have access to any further details such as first names or addresses, so that info may not be a lot of help, but for what it's worth, there it is.

Names ending in -owski usually started as a reference to a connection between a person or family and a place with a name ending in -ów or -owo or something like that. So this name probably started out meaning "person from Chichłowo" or some similar name. I cannot find any place by that name, but there is a village Chechłowo, served by Sledianów parish, in Białystok province, 13.5 km. northwest of Drohiczyn, that has been called Chichłowo in the past -- the surname could refer to that village. The root chechło means "marshy depression, wet meadows," so a village in or near such wet ground could get the name Chechłowo or Chichłowo or Chychłowo, and the surname could come from that. This is not necessarily the only place this surname could refer to, but it strikes me as the most likely candidate, without further details.

With your roots in R.I. and Mass., have you looked into the Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast? They have done a lot of research on origins of Polish families living in Mass., Rhode Island, and New Jersey, including compiling indexes of those buried at Polish cemeteries in the Northeast. If you haven't tried the PGS-NE, you might want to consider joining it and seeing if it can offer you some leads.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am wondering if you have any information on the Polish surname Otfinowski or Otwinowski. My great grandparents went by Otfinowski but were buried as Otwinowski. I think it originates from a town named Otfinow(ska), in the Tarnów region of Poland, or perhaps maybe there were just alot of Otfinowskis who lived there. Your information would be helpful in pinpointing an exact location.

In my book on Polish surnames, Otfinów (also spelled Otwinów) in Tarnów province is the place I suggested as the origin of this name. Usually -- not always, but usually -- names in -owski refer to a place with a similar name ending in -ów or -owo, so you expect Otfinowski or Otwinowski to mean "person from Otfinów/Otwinów." And that was the only place I could find in Poland with a name that qualified. There might have been more, too small to show up in my sources, but I think this village in Tarnów province is by far the most likely one to have served as the source of this surname. If so, it's an exception -- very few names can be traced back to just one place, most of the time if there's one village in Poland with a particular name, there'll be 2, 3, even 20 more!

Please realize, though, that surnames typically originated 200-400 years ago, sometimes more, and records don't go back that far (except, sometimes, for nobility). So there may not be any records that go back far enough to settle the matter of exactly when and where this surname and this village linked up. But it does seem likely that's where the Otfinowski's came from -- that name, Otfinów, is unusual, I doubt there are too many other places with similar names, and my references show none.

As of 1990 there were 425 Polish citizens named Otfinowski, and 931 named Otwinowski, so these aren't rare names. Of the Otfinowski's, the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Katowice (36), Kielce (120), Kraków (36), Tarnów (57), and Walbrzych (54), so they were all in the southern part of the country, from southeast through to southwest. The Otwinowski's were really scattered all over, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (102), and Kielce (253) -- only 3 in Tarnów province. This distribution may suggest there was more than one place that could spawn this name -- or it may just be that the name has been around a long time and people have spread all over. Kielce and Katowice provinces are in southcentral Poland, just north and west of Tarnów province, and that could still be consistent with origin in Tarnów province... All in all, it's not 100% certain that all the Otfinowski's and Otwinowski's came from that village in Tarnów province, but that's the most likely place of origin.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I saw your address on a website and you said that you'd be willing to help people found out a little about their Polish surname. I'm hoping you can help me with the name Jarek.

This is one of many surnames that derive from old first names dating back to the days when the Poles were pagans. Before they were converted, the Poles generally gave their children names formed by taking one or two basic roots and putting them together to form a kind of simplified wish or prophecy for their children's future; thus the root jar-, "sharp, strict, severe" + the root gniew, "wrath, anger" could be combined to make the first name Jarogniew, meaning something like "may his wrath be harsh" (i. e., may he be such a tough guy that no one will dare mess with him). There were several such names with that root jar-, which could also mean "robust, young," and there were also several nicknames or short forms from those names, including Jaroch, Jaron, Jarosz, and Jarek.

Jarek is actually that root plus the diminutive suffix -ek, meaning in effect "little Jar" or "son of Jar," where "Jar" stands for any of those nicknames for names beginning with the root Jar-. Many surnames started this way, and have remained fairly common in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 2,403 Polish citizens named Jarek. In Polish the J is pronounced like our Y, so Jarek would sound like "YAW-rek" (rhyming with "law" + "wreck"). There is no one part of Poland where this name is concentrated, you run into it all over the country, so it offers no clues as to where an individual family named Jarek might have come from.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am searching for information on my family history... Any information that you can give me about my family history would be much appreciated. The name is Jarocewicz. I have been told by my Grandmother that it is spelled the same in Polish and pronounced like Yarosevitch.

The suffix -ewicz means "son of," so this name would mean "son of Jarota" or some similar first name. That, in turn, probably started as a nickname or short form from one of the old pagan Slavic names with the first root jaro-, "sharp, harsh, severe," such as Jarosław (spelled Yaroslav by English phonetic values), Jaromir (there's a Czech-born hockey player for the Pittsburgh Penguins named Jaromir Jagr), etc. So all this name really tells you is that about the time surnames were becoming established, there was a fellow named Jarosz or Jarota or something like that who was well enough known in the community that folks started calling his kin by this name, much as the name "Johnson" or "Davidson" got started in English.

Jarocewicz is a pretty rare name, as of 1990 there were only 61 people by that name in all of Poland. The largest numbers of them lived in Białystok (24) and Siedlce (12) provinces -- I'm afraid I don't have access to more details, such as first names or addresses... Jarocewicz would be pronounced roughly "yaw-rote-SAY-vich." If the name was pronounced something like "yaw-row-SEV-itch," as your grandmother suggests, I can't wondering if it was Jarosiewicz, a much more common name (1,071 Poles by that name as of 1990), or Jaroszewicz, borne by 2,612 Poles. Both names sound something like "yah-row-SHEV-itch." Jarocewicz may be correct, but the other two are a lot more common and I thought I should at least mention the possibility that that's what the name will turn out to be.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... We are looking for info onthe surname Jastrowizc.

The correct spelling would be Jastrowicz. The suffix -owicz can almost always be translated "son of," so Jastrowicz means "son of Jaster" (or Jastro or something like that). The only source I have that mentions this root jastr- says that there was an archaic word in Polish jastry meaning "swift, quick," so Jastrowicz may mean "son of the swift one," or it may mean "son of Jaster" where "Jaster" is a name or nickname, kind of like "Swifty" in English.

As of 1990 there were 220 Polish citizens named Jastrowicz. They were scattered all over the country, with larger numbers living in the provinces of Kalisz (53), Sieradz (24), Szczecin (27), and Zielona Gora (33). There isn't much of a definite pattern to this distribution, except that the name seems more common in western Poland, in the areas formerly ruled by the Germans. But the name itself is definitely Polish, not German.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... My mother's parents' surnames were Ozga and Jaszyna. Can you tell me anything about the origins of these names?

According to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, Ozga comes from a root ożga (the z with a dot over it is pronounced like the "s" in "measure"), which means "fire." It's a common name, as of 1990 there were 4,204 Polish citizens named Ozga and another 1,739 who bore the name in the form Ożga.

Jaszyna is much rarer, as of 1990 there were only 53 Poles with this name, of whom 35 lived in the province of Tarnobrzeg in southeastern Poland, with the rest scattered in small numbers all over the country. None of my sources mention this name, so I can only make an educated guess: it's probably like most other names beginning with Jasz- in that it derives from nicknames for people with first names such as Jan, Jaromir, etc. Poles often formed names by taking the first couple of sounds from a first name -- such as Ja- from Jan or Jaromir or Jakub -- and adding suffixes to them, kind of like the way English formed "Teddy" out of "Theodore." Jaszyna could be a name formed that way from Jan, Jaromir, etc... That's not 100% certain, it's just the best I can come up with, given the info I have.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am searching for information on the names of Jasdzewski and Pietrowski. Both of my parent's families are from central Minnesota. One person has informed me that Jazdzewski might be the correct spelling of the first name, and that Piotrowski is a more common name than the latter.

That person who informed you sounds like knowledgeable -- so often when people write and say "I was told that..." what comes next turns out to be utter garbage. Piotrowski is more common than Pietrowski; as of 1990 there were 2,031 Polish citizens named Pietrowski, and 57,934 named Piotrowski. From the viewpoint of name derivation, however, we can treat those two as more or less the same -- the ultimate root of both is the first name Piotr, the Polish version of "Peter." And it is almost certain that Jasdzewski (no one by that name in Poland as of 1990) is a variant form of Jażdżewski (2,374); very possibly someone misread a z as an s somewhere along the line. Or at one time the name may well have been spelled that way also, but in the last century literacy has become far more common among Poles, and along with it came normative influences that tended to standardize spelling -- a phenomenon I'm sure you're familiar with. So variants such as Jasdzewski would tend to be standardized as Jażdżewski. (the Polish name is spelled with dots over both z's — giving them the "zh" sound of "Zhivago," so that the name would be pronounced roughly "yazh-JEV-skee").

Polish names ending in -ewski or -owski usually began as references to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name, typically ending in -ew, -ewo, -ów, -owo, -y, -i, etc. Thus we'd expect Jażdżewski to mean "person from Jażdżewo or Jażdżew, etc.," and Pietrowski would mean "person from Pietrów, Pietrowo, etc." Names ending in -ski are actually adjectival in origin, and when this suffix was added to toponyms other endings tended to drop off, so that different toponyms such as Pietrów, Pietrowo, even Pietrowice could all end up with the same adjectival form, Pietrowski. At one point in Polish history these surnames derived from toponyms were used only by the nobility, but as time went on that exclusivity could not be maintained; thus if you see Pietrowski in a record from the 15th century, it almost certainly refers to a noble family that owned an estate or village named something like Pietrów, Pietrowo, etc. -- all of which mean "[place] of Peter." But as time went on the name that originally implied "noble owning the estate of Pietrow/o/ice" came to mean no more than "person or family from Pietrow/o/ice."

There are numerous villages and towns in Poland with names that could produce the surname Pietrowski or Piotrowski (in Slavic languages there is a linkage between o and e, it is not rare to see forms with either vowel), so I have no basis on which to indicate one as the place most likely connected with your ancestors. This is not surprising, when you realize how common a name Piotr is in Poland -- there could be little "places of Peter" all over, and thus the surname meaning "one from the place of Peter" can also have developed all over. So unfortunately the data on frequency and distribution of either Pietrowski or Piotrowski isn't much help -- it just tells us these are common names, although Piotrowski is by far the more common.

Jażdżewski refers to a place named Jażdżew or Jażdżewo, and that in turn derives from a root jazd-/jezd- meaning "to travel, ride," referring to travel by some conveyance as opposed to on foot. So the name literally parses as "of, from, having to do with or connected with the place of riding," but more often we'd render it simply as "one from Jażdżew or Jażdżewo or Jażdy." It's odd that this is a moderately common name (as I said, 2,374 Poles bore this name as of 1990), but I can't find any corresponding toponyms on my maps; I would have expected to find at least a couple of Jażdżew's or Jażdżewo's. This is not too unusual, however; these surnames typically developed at least two centuries ago, often more, and since then the place they referred to could easily have disappeared, changed its name, be absorbed by another, larger community. So it's sometimes very difficult to track down the place the surname originally referred to.

I have a 10-volume source that lists every name in Poland as of 1990 and how many Poles bore that name (it's the one I've been citing data from all along); this source also breaks the total down by province. So I can tell you that Jażdżewski is found in many provinces, but is most common by far in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (736), Gdansk (832), Slupsk (340). These are all in northcentral to northwestern Poland, and that geographical concentration suggests these names may be associated with the Kaszubi, a very interesting ethnic Slavic group closely related to the Poles but with their own fascinating culture and language. You might wish to visit the Website of the Kashubian Association of North America, it's very possible they could give you some good info or leads on the Jazdzewski side -- possibly the Pietrowski side as well.

Also with the Minnesota connection you might want to investigate the Polish Genealogical Society of Minnesota.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Your web site is very interesting ! Any information on the meaning and origin of Kajdasz.

Glad you liked the web page. As for Kajdasz, the only source I can find that mentions it suggests it comes from the Hungarian first name Kada, or the Hungarian surname Kaydi. This is not as odd as it sounds, there was considerable contact between Poland and Hungary (at one point Polish territory actually bordered on territory ruled by Hungary), so you run into Hungarian names in Poland and Polish names into Hungary rather often... Another possibility (but one none of the experts mentions, so I don't know how reliable it is) might be derivation from the Polish noun kajda, a term for a haymaker's whetstone holder, or a pleat over the belt. I know that seems kind of far-fetched, but Poles have made names out of some of the most obscure things, so I can't rule out the possibility. That's the best I can come up with; if you'd like to see whether the best experts have anything firmer, you could write the Anthroponymic Workshop in Kraków.

As of 1990 there were 217 Polish citizens named Kajdasz; the distribution breakdown is short, so I'll quote the whole thing -- remember this is by province, not just in the cities named but in the provinces of which they are the capital: Bydgoszcz (33), Elblag (8), Gorzów (10), Jelenia Gora (1), Kalisz (4), Katowice (51), Poznan (91), Sieradz (3), Szczecin (2), Torun (8), Wroclaw (6). In this case Poznan and Katowice provinces seem to be the focal points -- I'm not sure that helps much, but it might be worth knowing. Interestingly, the name Kajdas, without the final z, is more common -- as of 1990 there were 624 of them, with more than half in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (234) and Katowice (141), and much smaller numbers in the other provinces.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am currently (4 yrs.) researching my Polish roots. I checked your surnames and found Kajdasz, however, my research found Kajder changed to Kaider. Could this be the same? My grandfathers papers read Galicia. Grandma is a mystery....Maiden name Ham or Hamm also from Galicia. My father was fostered as a child.....deceased now and I know very little about my Polish Roots.

Kajder or Kaider (just different ways of spelling the same thing) would probably not be the same as Kajdasz; it probably started out as a German name, rather than Polish. This is not unusual, there were many Germans who came to Poland in the 12th-15th century, settled down, and became "Poles"; their names often stayed the same but were spelled differently, according to Polish rather than German phonetic values. Just going by the sound, I'd say the original German name was probably spelled Kaider, Käuder, Keider, or Keuder. I can't find any of those names in my sources, but I don't have as much on German names as I do Polish.

As of 1990 there were 163 Polish citizens named Kajder; they were scattered all over the country, with no real concentration in any one place. We must also remember that "Galicia" was that part of the former Commonwealth of Poland that was ruled by Austria, and it covered what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. So you may find your ancestors came from what is now Ukraine.

Ham or Hamm is probably also German, although it could also come from Polish cham, "yokel, rustic." As of 1990 there were 8 Polish citizens named Ham, living in the provinces of Lodz (1) and Tarnów (7). There were 7 named Ham, living in the provinces of Katowice (3), Lodz (3), and Zielona Gora (1). Unfortunately I only have access to this data and no more, so I can't get first names or addresses of individuals by those names.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Labus is my last name. I found it listed as a Polish surname in 1790. There is a town called Labus, just north of Koszalin in what is now Poland, but in the past had been Pommerania, Germany. Labas is also a Lithuanian word meaning "good" and is used as a greeting. Any ideas?

This is a tough one, because there are several plausible derivations, and I have no basis on which to single out one and say "This is the relevant one in your case."

Labus certainly could come from the Lithuanian term -- I have often seen names of Lithuanian descent show up in the general area of Pomerania (which is not exactly what you'd expect from looking at the map). But I have a copy of a 2-volume work on Lithuanian surnames, and it seems to say this isn't a name used all that often. The names Labys, Labuŝaitis and Labuŝeviĉius appear, but not Labus or Labuŝ. Of course some names have died out since our ancestors emigrated -- I know that for a fact from Polish data -- and both Labuŝaitis and Labuŝeviĉius mean "son of Labuŝ," so clearly that name has been used and may have been more common a century or two ago.

Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions Łabus, Łabusz, and Łabuś among names deriving from the Polish root łaba, "paw"; the Polish L with a slash through it is pronounced like our w, and the s with an accent over it, pronounced somewhat like our "sh." I suppose such names originated as nicknames for a person with big hands or feet. In any case, among ethnic Poles, that would seem the most likely derivation... I can't help but wonder if in some cases the name might be connected with Łaba, which is also the Polish name for the river Elbe? I would think Rymut would have mentioned it if it was probable, and he didn't -- but then no one is right all time. I think it's worth keeping in mind.

But I also should mention that the term łabuz exists in Polish, from labuz in Ukrainian, "weed"; there is also a Ukrainian verb labuzytys', "to wheedle, coax, fawn, flatter," and under some circumstances a name Labus could conceivably come from that. I wouldn't expect it to be relevant unless research shows your family had a strong link with Ukraine, but if any such link does show up...

All three of these origins are possible, but choosing one as most probable depends on the family background. If you find a strong Lithuanian connection of any sort, origin from labas, "good," becomes much credible. Likewise, a Ukrainian connection would boost the chances of the "weed" or "wheedle" link. But if your people seem to have been ethnic Poles as far back as you can discover, then the link with łaba, "paw," seems strongest. As I say, I can't make that judgment -- but maybe you can!

As of 1990 there were 101 Poles named Łabus, 580 named Łabuś, and 1,685 named Łabuz (I think that has to be mentioned, because it would not be at all strange to see Łabus as a variant of Łabuz -- they are pronounced almost identically). If I had to bet, my money would be on Łabuś because your people were probably Poles and because the ś is often modified to simple s in many dialects. On the other hand, in 1990 none of the Poles named Łabus or Łabuś lived in Koszalin province, and only 7 of those named Łabuz lived there. (Unfortunately, I don't have access to more detailed info such as first names and addresses). Łabuś was most common in the provinces of Czestochowa (117) and Katowice (207) in southcentral Poland; Łabus was most common in Katowice province; and Łabuz was also most common in southcentral and southeastern Poland, e. g., provinces of Katowice (143), Kraków (205), Nowy Sacz (256), and Tarnów (380). It is highly likely those Łabuz'es had some Ukrainian roots.

I know I haven't handed you a nice, easy answer to the question of your name's derivation; but sometimes there isn't any one clear-cut answer, and I'd be a liar if I pretended there was. I hope this information may help you, especially as you combine it with what your research uncovers about your family's roots. I do think it's pretty clear-cut that with Poles the "paw" root is the best bet, with Lithuanians it's "good" root, and with Ukrainians it's the "weed" or "wheedle" root.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am hoping you can help me. I am interested in my surname, Indyk (Yndyk?) which my grandfather carried over to America in the early 1900s from Galicia (Blizianka). I understand this is the same surname of Martin Indyk, American ambassador to Isreal. I have not been able find any information except an obscure village in Holland (Indijk). Is there any relation?

I doubt the village in Holland has any connection (although when it comes to names you never know!). According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut the Polish name Indyk comes from a noun indyk, which means "turkey." Please note that the name has none of the comic overtones in Polish that it has in English! It's just one of a great many surnames taken from the names of birds and other animals. I suppose a fellow might have gotten that name originally as a nickname, referring to some connection with turkeys. He might have raised them, sold them, like to eat them, walked like one, wore clothes that somehow reminded people of a turkey -- the exact connection is hard to reconstruct centuries later, and probably in different cases the name developed from different connections.

As of 1990 there were 855 Polish citizens named Indyk, and another 636 named Indyka, which is basically the same name, meaning perhaps "of the turkey" rather than just "turkey." The name is found all over Poland, but the largest numbers are in the provinces of Krosno (178) and Rzeszów (182) in southeastern Poland -- part of what used to be Galicia. Note that my sources cover only Poland in its current borders, so there may well be plenty of Indyk's living in western Ukraine, which was also part of Galicia. The root is the same in Ukrainian, Indyk (as we'd spell it when transliterating from Cyrillic), and means "turkey, turkey-cock," and also "presumptuous young man."

[Note: later Dan Indish sent me the following update]:

I contacted you some time ago with a request for info on the Indyk surname and possible ties to Holland and the town of Indijk (a.k.a. Indyk). I appreciated the info and I thought I would give you an update for your files. I found this web page that you might be interested in: Dutch populace

It talks about a mass migration of Dutch (Mennonites) into Poland, then Russia in the mid 1500s. It talks about the Dutch as reclaimers of swamp land. The name Indijk may have been derived from their profession. The Dutch verb "indijken" means: to build a dyke around a lake or swamp, in order to pump the water out.

The information about indijken is fascinating, and in some cases certainly could be connected with the Indyk surname. It seems to me Polish onomastics experts are justified in saying that most Slavs bearing the name Indyk would get it from some connection with the word for "turkey" somewhere along the line; the origin of the word and name Indyk has been traced back to Latin indicus, and predates the immigration of the so-called Olendry (Hollaender) into Slavic lands. But the info you cite certainly makes the argument plausible that in some cases it could be of Dutch derivation instead. I intend to add this info to my Webpage in the near future.

You see why I hesitate to make sweeping dogmatic statements without qualifying them at least a little? It may seem gutless, but the truth is there's always an exception to the rule. And in name research we run into this sort of thing rather often. The same word (pronounced the same, if not spelled the same) can develop in different places, totally independently, with no link in meaning. Then somewhere along the line the Dutch dikers and the Slavic turkeys get together just long enough to confuse us!

By the way, it's ironic you quoted that page -- they don't mention it there, but I'm the one who translated that article from Polish to English (eight years ago -- can it really have been that long already?)

...You indicated that the largest numbers of Indyks are in the provinces of Krosno (178) and Rzeszów (182) in southeastern Poland. Aren't these cities along the same river?

Yes, they are, on the Wislok river. It'd be fascinating to learn if there's any mention in the town histories of Dutch immigration and dike-building.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Do you have any information on the orgin of the following Polish surnames: Balonek and Kajfasz.

I only found one source that mentioned Balonek or Bałonek (the Polish l with a slash through it sounds like our w). It said it can come from balon, "balloon, circular object," or bałon, "person with large, staring eyes." It seems likely someone would get this as a nickname because something about him was large and round, and his eyes seem the most likely candidate. As of 1990 there was no one in Poland named Bałonek, and there were 113 Polish citizens named Balonek; the vast majority lived in the province of Bielsko-Biala, in far southcentral Poland, southwest of Kraków. There were a few scattered in other provinces, but the main concentration was definitely in Bielsko-Biala province.

The same source -- a book on surnames in the area of Cieszyn, which is in Bielsko-Biala province, right on the Czech border -- also mentions Kajfasz. It says Kajfasz comes from the Biblical name rendered in English as "Caiaphas," the by-name of a Jewish high priest involved in the trial of Jesus. When I see people with names like that or Judas or Pilate -- names you would hardly expect devout Christians to give their children -- I can't help wondering if a person might have gotten that as a nickname because he played that character in a Passion play or similar religious activity? I can't account for it otherwise. Anyway, as of 1990 there were 271 Kajfasz's in Poland, with the larger numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala 119, Gdansk 23, Katowice 23, and Kraków 32 (there were also 48 who spelled the name Kajfosz, 31 in Bielsko-Biala province and the rest in neighboring provinces).

This data seems to suggest strongly your family came from the area of Bielsko-Biala, that part of southcentral Poland that protrudes down near where the Czech Republic and Slovakia meet. That doesn't necessarily have to be true, but the numbers sure make it seem likely. If you have no information on where the families came from, this might be a helpful clue, although it still leaves a lot of area to cover. Unfortunately I have no access to first names or addresses or any other data besides what I've given above, so I have no way to help zero in on a specific town or village.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Can you tell me if this is a German or Polish name: Kapelski.

Germans don't use the suffix -ski to end their names, that's completely foreign to them; -ski is a Slavic suffix, so the name is most likely of Polish origin -- it might also be Czech, but Czechs tend to spell it -sky rather than -ski. The surname probably derives from the Latin word capella, "chapel," perhaps by way of German, in which it is spelled Kapelle and can also mean a musical band. Large numbers of ethnic Germans have lived in Poland over the centuries, and from about 1772 to 1918 Germany ruled what is now the western half of Poland. So what with one thing and another, it is very common to find ethnic Poles living in "Germany," and ethnic Germans living in Poland. But as far as the linguistic origin is concerned, the -ski definitely indicates Slavic, and probably Polish, origin... As of 1990 there were 198 Polish citizens named Kapelski, scattered all over the country but with particularly large numbers living in the provinces of which the capitals are Poznan (104), which the Germans called Posen, and Bydgoszcz (35), which the Germans called Bromberg.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I was wondering if you knew the origin of the name Kulwiec. I realize that the original spelling was probably along the lines of Kulawczyk or Kulawiecz, but, since my great-grandfather left his siblings in Poland and died young here in the U.S., that information was never passed down. I am currently picking away at some genealogical research, and I am just beginning to learn what resources are available to me.

Kulwiec may well be the original form of the name. It is a recognized name in Poland, though not very common -- as of 1990 there were only 33 Polish citizens by this name, living in the provinces of Warsaw (3), Białystok (5), Bydgoszcz (5), Gdansk (9), Katowice (1), Krakow (4), Lodz (1), Pila (1), Wroclaw (4). (I'm afraid addresses, first names, etc. are not available, this is the only info the Polish government made available for compilation in a directory of surnames).

Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut lists this name under those deriving from the root kul- in the noun kula, sphere, bullet, crutch, or in the verb kulic się, to crouch, cringe. The term kulawy means lame, limping, and many other words with this root are used in reference to the lame or cripples, so I'm tempted to say the most likely meaning of this is son of the cripple. Perhaps not very flattering, but as Polish surnames go, believe me, this is better than many!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

 

… I was told that you have a book about people that lived in Poland years ago. What I am trying to do is search my roots in Poland. The surname is Prosofsky or Prosowski.

As of 1990 there were 199 Polish citizens named Prosowski (the other spelling is just a phonetic variation; Prosowski, when pronounced, sounds like "Prosofsky," so sometimes it might be spelled that way by non-Poles). The larger numbers of Prosowski's lived in the provinces of Warsaw (22), Katowice (52), Płock (41), and Tarnobrzeg (32), with much smaller numbers living in other provinces. (I'm afraid I have no access to further data such as first names, addresses, etc.). There is no obvious pattern to that distribution, so we can't say there's just one part of Poland where various families named Prosowski came from -- the name may well have originated in several different places independently. Names ending in -owski usually refer to a connection between a person or family and a place with a name ending in -ow, -owo-, -y, something like that; so we'd expect this name to mean "person from Prosów or Prosowo." Offhand I can't find any places by those names; it could be they're too small to show up on maps, or have changed names in the centuries since the surname originated. It's also possible Prosowski is a variant and the name originally took a different form, such as Prusowski or Proszowski. But without detailed info on the family, there's no way to know which of several feasible forms the surname developed from -- if it changed at all!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I am looking for information about my grandparents family names, Lugowski & Resel.

The name Ługowski (the Polish l with a slash through it is pronounced like our w), like most names ending in -owski, initially referred to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name. In this case we'd expect Ługowski to mean "person from Ługi or Ługów or Ługowo," something like that. There are several villages named Ługi and at least a couple more named Ługów, so there's no way to say which one a particular Ługowski family came from. The ultimate root of the place name is probably either ług, "lye," or a variant of łęg, "marshy meadow." As of 1990 there were 3,992 Polish citizens named Ługowski, living all over the country, so there is no one region we can point to and say "That's where they came from." The surname probably started independently in several different places in reference to a nearby Ługi or Ługów.

As of 1990 there were 147 Poles named Resel, with larger numbers living in the provinces of Czestochowa (39), Opole (54), and Walbrzych (16) and a few living in other provinces scattered here and there. The provinces mentioned are in far southcentral and southwestern Poland, in areas with large German populations. That may be significant, because Resel does not appear to be of Polish linguistic origin -- there is no similar Polish word or root. It is most likely a Polish phonetic spelling of a German surname such as Ressel or Roessel or Roesel. According to German surname expert Hans Bahlow the name Roesel is found among Germans in that general area, and means "rose-gardener, one who sold flowers." It is perfectly plausible that the spelling of the name of a German family Roesel who lived among Poles might eventually be modified so that Poles would pronounce it correctly, and Resel fits. So that strikes me as the most likely derivation of this name -- though I can't be 100% certain.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...my Dad's parents were from Poland..my Grandfather's name was Adam Kanczuzewski, I haven't found what city he was from. I heard he was from the Russian side of Poland. He came to the U.S. sometime between 1895-1900. My Grandmothers name was Teofila Mindykowski...(Her mothers maiden name was Rakoska)...

Names ending in -ewski or -owski usually started as references to a connection between a person and a particular place, which seems helpful -- the names may tell where the family came from. Unfortunately, they're not often all that helpful, because the places involved are too small to show up on maps, have changed their names over the years, have been absorbed by other communities, or a number of different villages use the same name. Thus Rakoski (Rakowska is just the feminine form) is a variant of Rakowski, which suggests origin in any of several dozen places named Rakow, Rakowo, etc. Those places got their names from some association with crabs, as rak is the word for "crab." As of 1990 there were 11,007 Polish citizens named Rakowski, living all over the country, so I'm afraid that particular name doesn't do much to help focus on a specific area.

As of 1990 there were 261 Poles named Mindykowski; the vast majority lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (113) and Gdansk (93) and Pila (25), all of which are in north central Poland. So in this case the name's distribution pattern does help a bit -- chances are very good your Mindykowski's came from a rather small part of Poland around and west and south of the major city of Gdansk. I cannot find any villages named Mindykowo, Mindykow, or anything like that on my maps, but chances are there are or were one or two villages by those names somewhere in the area, and most likely the surname originated as a reference to those places, whose name comes ultimately from the root minda, "coin."

The name Kanczuszewski probably comes ultimately from the noun kańczuga, "whip, lash," but again, it probably comes from a place that took its name from that word. There is a village Kanczuga in Rzeszow province (far southeast Poland), the surname could refer to that, or it could refer to other places too small to show up on my maps. As of 1990 there were only 7 Poles named Kańczużewski, living in the provinces of Warsaw (1) and Gorzow (6). There were 45 with the name spelled Kańczurzewski (pronounced exactly the same, so it can be regarded as essentially the same name), living in the provinces of Gdansk (1), Gorzow (9), Katowice (1), Konin (29), Poznan (1), and Zielona Gora (4). (Konin province is the province due east of Poznan province, and you can usually find Poznan on any map of Poland, so that will give you at least a general idea of the area where the most Kanczurzewski's can be found). Unfortunately I do not have access to more details such as first names, addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I have been searching for the history of my last name - Michalewski. Is there anything you can help me with.

In Polish, MICHALEWSKI is usually pronounced roughly "mee-ha-LEFF-skee." The Polish CH is not quite like our H, it's a little more guttural, like the "ch" in German "Bach"; so if you can make the first sound of the second syllable a bit more guttural than English H, it'll be perfect.

You can see 2002 data on its frequency and distribution, along with colored maps -- for both the masculine form, MICHALEWSKI, and the traditional feminine form, MICHALEWSKA -- here:

http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/michalewski.html

http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/michalewska.html

They show the name is not terribly common in Poland; there were 607 Poles bearing the masculine form and 646 bearing the traditional feminine form.

The name comes from the Polish first name Michał, and means basically "of the kin of Michael." It could also mean "one from the place of Michael," possibly referring to villages or estates or settlements with names beginning Michal-. More often, however, those place names begin Michalow-, and produce the surname MICHAŁOWSKI. Both MICHALEWSKI and MICHAŁOWSKI mean more or less the same thing, "of the _ of Michael," where the blank is filled in with something so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out, usually either "kin" or "place." As it happens, the forms with Michalow- are more often associated with place names than the forms with Michalew-. That's why I say MICHALEWSKI is more likely to mean "of the kin of Michael." But Polish surnames often switch -LE- and -LO- easily, and you can't rule out either meaning. 

The only way to be sure how to interpret the surname is to trace the family history. Sometimes, that will uncover information that makes it clear whether MICHALEWSKI referred to the kin of Michael or the place of Michael -- and if the latter is applicable, family history may clarify which particular place it refers to. There are dozens of places in Poland with names beginning Michalow-, and from the surname alone, one cannot say from which one a given Michalewski family took its name.

If you're interested, you can see data on the name MICHAŁOWSKI here:

http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/micha%25C5%2582owska.html

http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/micha%25C5%2582owski.html

The spelling MICHALEWSKI and MICHAŁOWSKI are distinctively Polish. But very similar names, meaning approximately the same thing, appear in other Slavic languages, because the forms of the name Michael are similar in those languages, for instance, Ukrainian Mykhailo and Russian Mikhail. Surnames ending in -owski/-ewski or -ovsky/-evsky are usually either Polish or Ukrainian in origin, however. Russian names are more likely to end in -ov or -ev. I notice you spell your name MYKHAYLEVSKY, which looks to me like a Ukrainian equivalent of Polish MICHALEWSKI. Of course, many people living in Russia have Ukrainian roots, and that's why we also see this name in Russia.

To sum up, the surname means "of the kin of Michael," or perhaps, in some cases, "one from the place of Michael." The latter may refer to specific villages or estates with names derived from Michal-; but more often, those place names take forms beginning Michalow- and thus produce the surname MICHALOWSKI. But MICHALEWSKI and MICHAŁOWSKI are very similar, and mean more or less the same thing. Only research into the history of the specific family may shed light on exactly why that family came to bear that name.

I hope this is some help to you, and I wish you the best of luck.

William F. "Fred" Hoffman
Author, Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings 
www.fredhoff.com


Copyright © 2010 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I have just visited your site on the net and thought that you may be able to assist with the origins of the family name Kapera. The name is thought to have come from the Kraków area in recent times. I noticed after searching the net that there is a school/suburb in Estonia called Kapera.

This is one of many names that are hard to pin down exactly. For one thing, it could easily be a variant of the name Kopera, from kopra, "dill," or kopr, "copper"; we often see names with -o- showing up with variant spellings with -a-, and Kopera is a fairly common name (1,752 Poles named Kopera as of 1990)... By contrast, there were 864 Poles named Kapera, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Katowice (56), Kraków (374), and Tarnów (55). So southcentral and southeastern Poland definitely seems to be the main area for this name.

It might also be a variant of Kasper, "Casper." There is mention in records from 1452 of a "Caper," and apparently that was from Casper, so it seems clear sometimes the -s- drops out.

If the root is, in fact, kaper, there are a couple of possible derivations. There is a noun kaper that comes from the Latin word for "goat," and there are other Polish names that come from Latin words; and the Polish word for "goat," kozioł, is the source of some of the commonest names in the country. So that is at least feasible... Also, there is a term kaper meaning "pirate," coming from a Dutch word. Finally there is a verb from Ukrainian, kaparyty, meaning "to be poor, miserable," so in some areas the name could come from that and be applied to a poor, sickly wretch.

Unfortunately, I have nothing that allows me to pick one of these and say, "Yes, this must be it." I can only present the possibilities. If you'd like to see whether Polish scholars have come up with anything more solid on this name, you could try writing the Anthroponymic Institute in Kraków.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission. 

...My grandfather Kazimierz Luczynski immigrated to the United States on the15th of May, 1917. His petition for naturalization states that he was born on the 4th of December, 1885, at Zabno, Poland.... A search on the Fourteenth Census of the US: 1920 - Population shows his place of birth as Galicia, PO-A. I am searching for information on his name.

Galicia was the name of the territory ruled by Austria after the partitioning of Poland (beginning in 1772). It covered the southeastern part of Poland and the western part of what is now Ukraine. PO-A is probably "Poland-Austria" or something similar -- census takers were told not to accept "Poland" as a place of birth because technically, no such nation existed; they had to specify German Poland, Russian Poland, or Austrian Poland. As for Zabno, there are at least three villages by that name in what used to be Galicia (plus several more in other parts of Poland); without more data there's no way to tell which of those Zabno's is the one you want.

...I have also noticed that in 1733 Stanislas Leszczynski was elected King of Poland. Could Luczynski be derived from Leszczynski?

Well, to start with the question about Leszczynski, no, it's highly unlikely Luczynski and Leszczynski have anything to do with each other. You never say "never" when it comes to surnames, but from a Polish point of view those two names would have no more to do with each other than, say, "Arthur" and "Artemis" -- just a purely coincidental sharing of a couple of sounds.

Łuczyński (the Polish L with a slash through it is pronounced like our w) probably derives from a place name. There is, for instance, a village named Łuczyna in Wroclaw province -- Łuczyński could very well have started out meaning "person from Łuczyna." Łuczynów in Radom province is also a possible candidate; and there may be more too small to show up in my sources. The place names, in turn, might come from the Polish forms of the first names Lucy or Lucas (meaning something like "Lucy's place, Lucas's place), or from the rather rare or dialect term łuczyna, which means pieces of wood dried and smeared with oil and burned to provide illumination -- "torch" would be the closest translation in English, I'm not sure "torch" is exactly what's meant here, but it's pretty close.

As of 1990 there were 4,320 Polish citizens named Łuczyński, so it's not a rare name. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (501), Kielce (266), Lodz (574), Piotrków (284); this suggests a concentration in the central part of the country, but as I say, there are Łuczyński's living in virtually every province.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.  

...What can you tell me about the name of Opat. I undersand that it means "abbot" and that it may have been given to certain people for their work. It has not been shortened from another name in at least 4 generations. My in-laws came from the kepino area and have family there in Kaliz. Most of the other people we have found with the Opat name are Czech.

There's not a great deal I can add to what you already know. Opat probably does come from the term opat, meaning "abbot," but such names don't necessarily refer to the man himself. Just as a name meaning "king" might refer to a servant of the king, or someone who was the "king" of a group and called that as a nickname, a fellow might be called "abbot" in jest, as a nickname, or because he worked for or served an abbot, etc. We sometimes think of abbots as simple men of prayer, but in medieval times, an abbot was actually a person of considerable power. He often owned vast estates, technically the property of the monastery but in fact run by him; he might have all kinds of retainers and servants. So we can't say for sure exactly what "Opat" might mean as a surname, except that it was somehow connected with "abbot."

As of 1990 there were 184 Polish citizens named Opat, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 2, Biala Podlaska 2, Białystok 5, Bydgoszcz 5, Chelm 9, Ciechanów 3, Elblag 1, Gdansk 14, Gorzów 11, Katowice 12, Konin 9, Legnica 5, Leszno 26, Lublin 27, Lodz 3, Olsztyn 4, Ostrołęka 5, Pila 5, Poznan 16, Torun 2, Zielona Gora 10. I'm afraid I don't have further details such as first names or addresses, and I have no data on Czechs at all, so I can't shed too much light on that.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission. 

Do you know anything about my own surname Gieraltowski? Do names that end in -ski or -cki generally just imply "from the.." or "of the.."? Is there more meaning to such names?

The endings -ski and -cki in Polish are adjectival, and as such they don't necessarily mean more than "of, pertaining to." So a piekarz is a "baker," and piekarski means "of the baker, baker's." In a particular context you can sometimes read a little more into them -- for instance, if you find a -ski or -cki name in a record from 1300, it's virtually certain that person was noble. But most of the time, just "of" or "from" is all the suffix means.

As for Gieraltowski, it means "person/family from the place of Gerald." Gierałt is one form the German name Gerald took in Polish; "Gierałtów" or "Gierałtowo" is a name that might logically be given to a place owned or founded by a man named Gierałt; and Gierałtowski is a surname meaning a person came from that place, owned it (if he was noble), travelled there often on business -- had some kind of connection with that place that caused people to refer to him by that name. There are several villages whose names this surname could come from, including a Gierałtów in Jelenia Gora province, a Gierałtowo in Poznan province, and several Gierałtowice's. As of 1990 there were 617 Polish citizens named Gierałtowski; particularly large numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (150), Białystok (66), and especially Łomża (247), with just a few scattered here and there in other provinces.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.  

... Hello fellow Genpoler, I hope that this is not to much of an imposition, but could you inform me if the names Nieurzyla or Nieuzyla are in your book. This is not possible to check out in the United Kingdom. If they are in then I will purchase the book via the internet.

I'm glad you asked -- these names are not in my book, and it would have been a shame if you'd gone to the trouble to order it only to come up empty!

The reason these names are not in the book is that I have never come across them before. Looking in the Directory of Surnames In Current Use in Poland, I see that Nieurzyła (the Ł is pronounced like English W) was a name borne by only 4 Poles as of 1990--3 in Bielsko-Biala province, 1 in Katowice province. Nieuzyła was borne by 5 Poles, one in Gdansk province, 2 in Katowice prov., 2 in Opole prov. The real jackpot is the spelling Nieużyła (the Z with a dot over it is pronounced like 'zh' in 'Zhivago)-- there were 347 Poles by that name, in the following provinces: Gdansk 1, Katowice 238 (!), Lodz 1, Nowy Sacz 2, Opole 94, Płock 1, Poznan 1, Torun 2, Walbrzuch 1, Wroclaw 6. From an onomastic point of view all these names are variants of the same name, spelled slightly differently due to error, dialect differences, different pronunciations, etc.; but as often happens, one particular spelling is by far the most popular, and in this instance that spelling is Nieużyła.

The Directory does not have further data such as first names or addresses, and I know of no way to get hold of such data, except perhaps by consulting Polish telephone books; the latter is a long shot, as phones in private homes are not so common in Poland as in the U.S. and the U.K. But a look at the directory for Katowice province, and perhaps also Opole province, would presumably yield addresses of at least a few Poles by this name.

Without further data it's tricky trying to analyze the derivation of this name. It appears to come from nie-, "not," + a form of użyć, to use; Nieużyła would seem to mean something like "not used" or "useless." None of my sources mention it, however, so I want to make it clear that I am only making an educated guess.

There is a soure that might be able to give you a firmer derivation: the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute.

I'm sorry I could not help you directly, but I hope this information may prove useful to you. I wish you the best of luck with your research!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I've been researching my husband's family line - Polakowski and am having a very hard time finding anything on the original ancestor to immigrate to America and the link back to Poland. I saw a little on the site about this surname but not much, could you elaborate for me?

Usually there is very little about surnames, whether English or Polish, that offers useful leads in tracing individual families. People often write to me hoping I'll be able to say, "Oh, your surname proves your family was noble and owned the estate at X located 10 km. south of Warsaw, and your ancestor was 5 foot 6 inches and red-haired, and had seven kids and three dogs." All most Polish surnames tell us is "Your ancestors came from somewhere in Poland -- or maybe Belarus or Lithuania or Ukraine, or some other area where lots of Poles lived at some point."

Polakowski, pronounced roughly "po-lah-KOFF-skee," is a good example. The root of the name is Polak, which means "Pole." In terms of structure Polakowski means literally "of the Pole's _," where the blank is filled in with something so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out -- usually either "kin" or "place." So Polakowski could just mean "of the kin of the Pole."

More often names in the form X-owski refer to places with names beginning with the X part, places where the family lived or with which they were connected at some point centuries ago. So Polakowski most likely started out meaning "one from the place of the Pole," referring to some specific village or settlement with a name beginning Polak-. Unfortunately, there are a number of places in Poland with names that fit, and the surname gives us no clue which one it refers to in a given family's case. Your Polakowskis might have come from Polaki in the province of Siedlce, or Polakowo in Koszalin province, or Polakowice in Wroclaw province, etc. The only way to find out which one applies in a given family's case is through detailed and successful genealogical research.

In other words, I can't tell you what you want to know. You're far more likely to determine where your Polakowskis came from than I am.

Once in a while a name will turn out to be concentrated in a specific area to the point that that concentration provides a useful clue. But I'd estimate that happens in fewer than 5% of all cases. And to be honest, we wouldn't expect a name meaning "kin of the Pole" or "one from the place of the Pole" to be restricted to any one part of Poland.

And that's what the data shows. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 3,133 Polish citizens named Polakowski. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area. A Polakowski family could come from anywhere.

So the bottom line is, I answer questions about name meanings and origins primarily to satisfy people's understandable curiosity. Once in a while I'm able to dig up some bit of info that actually helps trace a given family. But that's pretty rare, and I'm afraid it didn't happen in this case.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I have some additional info about last name Budrewicz, that I would like to share with you. You've mentioned the village near Suwalki called Budrowo, but I believe most of Budrewiczes come from area of what is now Belarus and Lithuania. My grandfathers last name was Budrewicz and he was born in 1917 in the small village called Budrewicze near Lida (now Belarus). It's very close to the border of Lithuania and not so far from Wilno. The village still exists and I was even able to trace it on one of the Internet maps.

I'm interested in the subject as I believe that the origins of the name Budrewicz come from Lipka Tatars, that were invited to settle and given the land and noble titles in Lithuania over several centuries (small piece from Wikipedia below).

The migration of some Tartars into the lands of Lithuania and Poland began during 14th century and lasted until the end of the 17th. (...) According to some estimates, by 1591 there were about 200,000 Lipka Tatars living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and about 400 mosques serving them. According to the Risāle-yi Tatar-i Leh (an account of the Lipka Tatars written for Süleyman the Magnificent by an anonymous Polish Muslim during a stay in Istanbul in 1557-8 on his way to Mecca) there were 100 Lipka Tatar settlements with mosques in Poland. The largest communities existed in the cities of Lida, Navahradak and Iwye. There was a Lipka Tatar settlement in Minsk, today's capital of Belarus, known as Tatarskaya Slabada.

Monika Talarek

...I am interested in my surname: Fikus. My father (and mother) were from Poland, and the spelling was not changed in recent history. My father, Witold, was a concentration camp survivor, 1915-1996...

Fikus is a perfectly good Polish name; as of 1990 there were 1,138 Polish citizens with this name, so it is not uncommon in Poland. The Fikus's lived all over, with larger numbers in the provinces of Gdansk (102), Kalisz (163), Katowice (139), Opole (281), Poznan (59), and Wroclaw (63), and smaller numbers in many other provinces. I don't see a real pattern there, except that the name seems to be more common in western Poland, in the areas ruled by the Germans most of the last two centuries... None of my sources say definitively what the name derives from, but the most likely origins are from the noun fik, a variant of the word for "fig-tree," or from the verb fikać, "to kick, jump." It's quite common to see surnames derived from terms for trees, fruit, etc. -- it might mean an ancestor lived by a fig-tree, or liked to eat figs, or sold them. Or the name could have originated as a sort of nickname for someone who was always jumping and kicking, a very active person, full of nervous energy. Those seem the most likely origins for this name, although all this is just educated guesswork on my part, since, as I say, none of my sources discuss the derivation of the name.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Having read your web page on Polish names I didn't see mine - Naumowicz - do you have any information on its origin?...
You must understand that there are over 800,000 Polish surnames -- some very common, some extremely rare -- so I rather doubt I will live long enough to list them all on the Web page. But I'm glad to add to the list as I can.

Naumowicz is a fairly common name; as of 1990 there were 1,564 Polish citizens by that name. The largest numbers of them lived in the provinces of Białystok (195), Gorzow (120), Suwałki (290), and Zielona Gora (92), and smaller numbers were in virtually every other province. Suwałki and Białystok provinces are in northeastern Poland, whereas Gorzow and Zielona Gora provinces are in far western Poland; but it's possible that name was originally concentrated in eastern Poland. After World War II the so-called Operation Vistula forced millions of people to relocate from what had been eastern Poland to the western regions taken from Germany and given Poland; so we often see names of Ukrainian or Belarusian or Lithuanian origin showing up in large numbers in western Poland, far from where we'd expect them to be -- all due to the post-war relocations.

I'm fairly certain that this name originated in eastern Poland (and Belarus and Ukraine, which were historically part of the Polish Commonwealth) because Naumowicz means "son of Naum," and Naum is a name used mainly by Orthodox Christians; you don't often see Polish Catholics using it. We have this same name in English, usually spelled Nahum -- it's the name of one of the minor prophets of the Bible (see the Book of Nahum) and comes from a Hebrew word meaning "consolation, compassion." For some reason this name never became all that popular among Roman Catholics and other Christians of western Europe, but it did become moderately popular among Orthodox Christians, and also among Greek-rite Catholics (so-called Uniates). So even though the spelling of Naumowicz is Polish, in most cases the families bearing the name will prove to be from eastern Poland and the lands adjoining it.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Hi. I would like a quick and dirty analyses for the name Wiater. My grandfather immigrated from the village of Tyczyn near Rzezsow in 1906. That is the area of my interest...

The name Wiater comes from the Polish word wiatr, "wind." While it's difficult to say now -- centuries after the name originated and began to be applied to different families -- exactly why such a name stuck, we can make plausible guesses. It could have been applied as a nickname to someone born on a windy day, someone who tended to be rather windy, possibly even someone who made or ran a windmill; and in the course of time it came to be used as a surname.

It is a common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 1,658 Poles with the name Wiater, and another 3,815 with the name Wiatr. As far as distribution, the name seems to be common found all over the country, with no real concentration in any one area; this is not surprising, obviously no one part of Poland would have a monopoly on wind, so we wouldn't expect the name to show up only in certain places.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... looking for the family name of Stankiewicz. Please if you can help me find any info on this family name...

This one is fairly easy. The suffix -owicz or -ewicz means "son of," so this name means "son of Stanek" or "son of Stanko." These are both nicknames or diminutives of the name Stanisław (in English Stanislaus), a very ancient and popular first name in Poland; Poles loved to take the first syllable of popular first names, drop off the rest, and add suffixes (not unlike our "Eddy" from "Edward"). So Stanek or Stanko would be kind of like "Stan" or "little Stan" or "Stan's son" in English; and the sons of a man by either of these names would be referred to very often as Stankiewicz. Eventually it stuck as a surname.

Surnames derived from diminutive or affectionate forms of popular first names tend to be pretty common, and that's true in this case. As of 1990 there were 19,826 Polish citizens named Stankiewicz, distributed more or less evenly all over the country. This makes sense, the name could and probably did get started anywhere they spoke Polish and had guys named Stanisław, i. e., all over Poland.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

..The family tradition says that Babicki means "ladies' man." Can you confirm this? (My grandparents come from an area that is now Belarus)...

Well, it could possibly mean that. The root bab- in Polish (also Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, etc.) does mean basically "woman," and several words from that root do mean "ladies' man." We can't rule out the possibility that that's what the name meant when first applied to your family.

In general, though, Babicki is more likely to have started as a reference to the name of a place the family was associated with; if they were noble, they owned it, if they were peasants they worked there, or if merchants, they traveled there often on business. There are several possible place names that could spawn the name Babicki, including Babica and Babice, and unfortunately there are quite a few villages by those names (not just in Poland). So the sound, scientific answer is to say that this surname means "coming from Babica or Babice"; and most likely later on, once people had forgotten what the true origin was, they proposed a perfectly simple and natural explanation based on what the name sounded like. And in individual cases it might even be right! But I'm afraid most of the time the truth's a little more boring. Instead of "ladies' man," it probably just meant "one from Babica/Babice"; those places, in turn, may have gotten their names from some association with women, but there's evidence that baba was sometimes used in names to mean "hill, elevation, free-flowing river" (supposedly by some rather far-fetched analogies with the female body!?).

Sorry to be a killjoy, but I'll say this -- compared to some names I interpret for people, this is a fine one. The other day I had to tell a woman her ancestral name means "pees crooked," and I had to tell a man his name meant "manure." In comparison with a lot of Polish names, this one is pretty nice!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...My name is not listed. I wonder if you have any information that you could share with me or suggest where I may look...

Kochański (ń = the n with an accent over it) could come ultimately from several roots, but the most likely is kochany, "beloved," or kochanek, "lover, sweetheart"; it appears in Polish legal records as far back as 1471. It's hard to say whether the name came directly from those roots or from a place named something like "Kochany" (which, in turn, surely came from those roots); in theory, the name could have developed either way. I don't see any place by that name, but some might have existed centuries ago, when surnames were being formed -- there are several villages named Kochanów, but that name would tend to generate a surname in the form Kochanowski, not Kochański.

It's a pretty common name, as of 1990 there were 5,266 Polish citizens named Kochański. They lived in every province of Poland, with larger numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (523), Białystok (291), Bydgoszcz (270), Katowice (273), Kielce (264), Lublin (226), Olsztyn (206), and Torun (224); but as I say, there were Kochanski's living in every province, and there doesn't appear to be any significant regional concentration that would let tell us anything useful about where it originated. Most likely it developed in many different places, so all Kochanski's are not all part of one big family.

It's worth mentioning that the ch and h are pronounced the same in Polish (kind of like the ch in German "Bach"), and when a sound can be spelled more than one way you usually will see it spelled more than one way. So don't be surprised if you occasionally run into the spelling Kohański -- it's rare, but it could happen, and it wouldn't necessarily indicate any real difference.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I just came across your web page on Polish Surnames. Thought I would toss my father's name your way to see what you might know or have it in your notes. The closest surname on your list was Kochowski; was wondering if ours had a different origin. Seems to me that I once heard that the original spelling had a "mark" (needless to say I don't know any Polish to speak of) under the "n" but I'm not really sure. I do know that my father never knew where his father came from (Russia he thought), nor whether he had any aunts or uncles.

The Polish form of the name would be Kochański; the name is pronounced something like "ko-HINE-skee." It comes from a Polish word kochany, meaning "beloved." I believe the name Kochan was used in ancient times, kind of a way of saying a child was especially dear to this parents and others, and the surname would derive from that name or some similar usage. For instance, it might refer to a person who came from a place with a similar name, although offhand I can't find any place with a name likely to produce Kochański (there are a number of places that could produce the similar name Kochanowski, but less likely to produce Kochański). About the most we can say is that it means "of, from, pertaining to the beloved one," perhaps with Kochan used as a first name, thus "kin of Kochan," or even "one from the place of Kochan."

It's a pretty common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 5,266 Poles by this name, living all over the country, so we can't really pin one area down and say "That's where they came from." I'm afraid that's true of most Polish surnames, I'd estimate only 5% or so offer any kind of helpful lead as to where a family by that name originated. Since Russia at one time ruled most of central and eastern Poland, the "Russia" clue isn't a whole lot of help either. About the most I can say is that this probably is a Polish name rather than Russian, because Russian doesn't use the root koch- to mean "love, dear," that's more a Polish usage.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I was wondering if could assist me in establishing the origins of my surname, which is Brytan. all my family comes from Janow Jubelski in Poland.

I was a little surprised to see that as of 1990 there were 352 Polish citizens named Brytan -- that's more than I would have expected. They lived in many provinces, with larger numbers in the provinces of Elblag (30), Krakow (86), Tarnobrzeg (34), and Zamosc (63). The ones in Tarnobrzeg and Zamosc provinces are the ones most likely to be related to you, since that's the general area of Janow Lubelski (which is in Tarnobrzeg province, near the southern border with Zamosc province). Still, the distribution data shows that the name does appear elsewhere.

None of my sources discuss the origin of the name, but it seems likely to come from the root Brtyan-, "Britain, British." There is a term brytan that means a kind of large dog, and it comes from that root; all the words in the dictionary beginning with Brytan- have some connection with "Britain," usually referring to something associated with the British. Sometimes people got place-derived names because they came from that place, sometimes because they traveled there on business, but that would have been quite a commute! So it seems reasonable to figure the Brytans generally had some British blood in their family tree. This is not unheard of, there were quite a few foreigners living in Poland over the years -- the Scots, in particular, who often came to Poland to work as peddlers. It's not out of the question that a Scot who settled in Poland might end up with the name Brytan, since to Polish peasants the distinction between Scot and British might be kind of nebulous. But a Brytan could certainly have had British ancestors; there were Germans, Swedes, Scots, etc. in Poland, why not a few British?

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I have been searching for information on 2 Polish surnames that do not seem to be very common. I am researching the names Sztermer and siebiedzinski. Could you give me any information on the origin and/or meaning? (Quick and dirty is just fine.)

Sztermer is a Polish phonetic spelling of the German name Störmer (2 dots, the umlaut, over the o), so that either name sounds sort of like "shtare-mer." This comes from the German root Storm, "storm," and according to German surname expert Hans Bahlow, originated as meaning "man with a stormy disposition," i. e., one who storms his way through life. While German-derived names are not at all rare in Poland, this one happens to be pretty rare: as of 1990 there were only 29 Polish citizens by this name, living in the provinces of Warsaw (1), Czestochowa (1), Kalisz (6), Legnica (2), Łomża (3), Ostrołęka (1), Suwałki (6), Szczecin (1), Wroclaw (4), and Zielona Gora (4). (I'm sorry to say I have no access to further details such as first names or addresses).

Siebiedziński is a good Polish name, but it, too, is rather rare -- only 27 Poles bore that name as of 1990, living in the provinces of Warsaw (2), Kraków (3), Suwałki (21), and Walbrzych (1) -- Suwałki province is in northeast Poland, near the border with Lithuania and Belarus. In form Siebiedziński appears almost certainly to be one of many Polish surnames derived from place names, probably something like Siebiedzin or Siebiedzino. I can't find any such place mentioned in my sources, but that's not too unusual. Surnames developed centuries ago, and often the places they came from were tiny hamlets (the name may have been used only by locals and never would have appeared on any map), or have since been renamed, or absorbed into other communities. If you have any luck tracing your ancestors to a particular area of Poland, and you see any mention of a place named Siebiedzin or anything like that (most likely in the Suwałki area), that is probably the place your ancestors got their name from. But it may take a lot of digging to find it!

...Also, I saw your explanation of the name Danisiewicz, is the name Zdanowicz just a variation? Thank you in advance for any help you can provide...

No, Zdanowicz is a separate name, meaning literally "son of Zdan." That, in turn, is a short form of an ancient Polish first name such as Zdamir, dating from pagan days, before the Poles were Christianized and starting naming their children after Christian saints. The original name meant something on the order of "gives peace," as best I can tell; and Zdan would be a short form, kind of like "Ted" from "Theodore" in English. This name appears in legal records as far back as 1460, so it's a good old Polish name. As of 1990 there were 3,994 Poles named Zdanowicz, living pretty much all over the country with no apparent concentration in a specific region, although the provinces of Białystok and Suwałki in northeastern Poland had some pretty good numbers (616 and 121 respectively).

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I have often wondered the origin and meaning of my family name and wondered if you could shed any light in this matter. The surname is Daszkowski...

The name Daszkowski, like most names ending in -owski, probably started as a reference to a connection between a family and a particular place, in this case named something like Daszków or Daszkowo. I found only one place with a name that fits: a village that no longer exists, which was called Daszkowo or Doszkowo. It was near Gasiorow and Biezdziechow in what is now Poznan province, apparently just a few km. west of the town of Wrzesnia in Poznan province. It's possible other places existed with names this surname could derive from, but I can't find any others, so this just might be the place. It was referred to in 159 records as Daszkowo, but in most other records it was called Doszkowo. It seems fairly likely that that's what Daszkowski started out meaning, "person or family from Daszkowo/Doszkowo." The name of the village, in turn, means "Daszko's place" -- Daszko is a name we see in old records, used as a kind of nickname for popular first names such as Daniel or David (kind of like "Ted" from "Theodore"). So there was apparently a fellow named Daszko at some point who owned or established this village, and it was named for him, and your family had some connection with that place -- usually, it would just boil down to the fact that they lived there.

The name Daszkowski is moderately common in Poland, as of 1990 there were 1,084 Polish citizens named Daszkowski -- which is why I can't help but wonder if there were other small places named Daszkow or Daszkowo, which were too small to show up on maps, or changed their names, or were absorbed into other communities; it just seems odd that that many people could have gotten their name from one little village that doesn't even exist any more. Still, who knows? That's the only Daszkowo I could find. In any case, the Daszkowski's lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (183), Bydgoszcz (78), Gdansk (185), Lodz (60), Slupsk (74), and Torun (104). It appears they're more common in the northcentral and central part of Poland than elsewhere, but there isn't enough of a pattern to let us pin it down any more precisely than that.

[Follow-Up On Daszkowski]

...Thanks for the information. I have since learned that my family is of Polish nobility and comes from the town called Daszki, which was given to them when they became nobility. The town of Daszki (which I am not sure if it still exists) was near Gdansk. My family had a large estate there until my great-great-great grandfather sold it (or lost it somehow) and immigrated to America. I know that some of the family ended up staying in Poland and had many children. This could explain at least some of the Daszkowski population (at least in that region)...

This is an excellent example of what I mean when I tell people "If you do a good job researching your family, you'll end up being far more of an expert on your names than I can ever hope to be!" None of my sources mentioned Daszki near Gdansk, and it's not on any of my maps. But you got the information, and it sounds fairly reliable to me. For a lot of Daszkowski's what I wrote would have been correct, but there's always one in every crowd 8-).

So ignore what I wrote about the derivation -- but at least the distribution data I gave you may be some help. And I'm pleased to hear you were able to come up with this info. It just proves, it's smart to listen to the "experts," but never take what they say as Gospel, and never stop digging on your own!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am trying to do research on my father's family. Nobody seems to know much about them. I know that both of my father's parents came from an area near Warsaw, in a shtetl named Bendzin. I'm wondering what info you could give me regarding each of their last names. One of them, Winograd, which is also my name, has been said to mean "vinyard" in several languages...

Winograd does indeed mean "vinyard" in Polish (and other Slavic languages, if you adjust the spelling slightly in view of each language's phonetics). It's difficult to tell in a given case whether an ancestor got this name because he lived near a vinyard, owned a vinyard, or worked in a vinyard -- about the most we can say for sure is that there was some kind of connection with a vinyard... I was surprised to see that as of 1990 there were only 46 Polish citizens named Winograd, I would have expected a lot more (however, there were 526 with the related name Winogrodzki). The 46 lived in the following provinces: Białystok (6), Bydgoszcz (11), Legnica (1), Skierniewice (1), Walbrzych (3), Wroclaw (13), and Zielona Gora (11), so they were scattered pretty much all over the country. (I'm afraid this data is all I have access to, I don't know how to get details such as first names and addresses).

Alexander Beider mentions Winograd in his Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland (which included the Warsaw area), so it clearly is a name sometimes borne by Jews. But I haven't run into it often enough to know whether it's justifiable to conclude anyone named Winograd would probably be a Jew. In theory, it's one of those names that could be used by any religion; in practice, sometimes such names do prove to be associated primarily with one or another. In view of Jewish dietary precepts, however, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if this name is primarily associated with Jews; if so, that might have something to do with why it's less common than I expected, and it may have been considerably more common before the Holocaust.

Novletsky or Novlotsky is a bit of a problem. The form doesn't really "sound" right to me, and as of 1990 there was no one by either name in Poland. Even if you adjust for phonetic differences, turning it into Nowlecki or Nowlocki (Poles write the sound "ts" with the letter c, and the sound "v" with the letter w), it still doesn't seem quite right. However, an extra O can often get lost quite easily, and as of 1990 there were 12 Nowolecki's living in Poland, all in Warsaw province. I can't be positive this name is connected with the one you're asking about, but from a linguistic point of view such a connection is plausible, and the area seems to be about right... Oddly, Beider's book doesn't mention any of these names, and usually he is pretty good about listing any name borne by Jews living in the eastern 1/3 of modern Poland. As for the meaning, its form suggests it is derived from a place name, probably something like Nowolec or Nowolek. I can't find mention of any such place in my sources, but this is not necessarily odd -- surnames originated at least two centuries ago (although Jewish names are often of somewhat coinage), and the places they originally referred to might have been too small to show up in any official map or gazetteer, or might have been renamed, or absorbed into larger communities. Often we have a very hard time finding the places surnames came from.

If you would like more help, perhaps you can find some useful leads at the Website of the publication Avotaynu, or from Miriam Weiner's Routes to Roots Foundation. These are connected with folks who have greater expertise in Jewish research than I, and you just might be surprised what you can find if you hunt for records of the Bendzin shtetl or other such sources.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...researching family please help if you can thanks nancy...

The name Pyrtek does not appear in any of my books by Polish name experts, but it seems plausible that it comes from the root pyrt- or perc-; there is a Polish term perć (connected with Slovak prt') which means "a steep path along a mountain-side, a steep passageway." If this connection is correct -- and I can find nothing else in Polish that appears to be relevant -- it probably belongs to the category of surnames derived from references to places. Perhaps an ancestor lived near such a path, or often traveled on such a path.

As of 1990 there were 348 Polish citizens named Pyrtek, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 6, Bielsko-Biala 3, Gdansk 11, Katowice 231, Koszalin 1, Krakow 37, Nowy Sacz 20, Torun 2, Walbrzych 5, Zielona Gora 32. It's interesting that by far the majority live in provinces in southcentral Poland (Bielsko-Biala, Krakow, Nowy Sacz, and Katowice), near the Czech/Slovak border. This makes sense in terms of geography and also in light of the fact that this name may not have originated as native Polish -- it seems more likely to have come from Slovak. That's not to say your ancestors weren't Poles, there are lots of Poles with names of non-Polish origin; but at some point there might have been some Slovak blood in the family. That's guessing on some rather slender evidence, but the chances are good enough to make it worth mentioning.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Would like to know information about the surnames Gargasz, Zieba, Czeberowski, and Glozor...

Czeberowski is a rare name, as of 1990 there was no one in Poland with this name or any of the likely spelling variations such as Cieberowski. Names ending in -owski usually refer to an association with a particular place, in this case probably a place name something like Czeberów or Czeberowo, so that the surname means "person from Czeberow[o]." I can't find any such places, although there are a couple of villages in Białystok province in northeastern Poland named Czeberaki -- that name comes from an old first name Czeberak, which is thought to be related to the term ceber, "bucket." It's not unusual to find that a name ending in -owski doesn't match up with any village still in existence; sometimes surnames were formed from references to names used only by locals, names of very small villages or farmsteads that never appeared on any map, or have since been changed. But that's my best guess as to what the surname comes from, "person from Czeberowo."

Gargasz is also not too common, but it's not unheard of. As of 1990 there were 419 Poles named Gargas, 140 named Gargasz, and 238 named Gargaś (ś stands for the Polish s with an accent over it, pronounced like our "sh," and the sz is a similar sound -- so all three of these spellings can reasonably be regarded as minor variants of the same name). While this name can be found all over Poland, it is a bit more common in southcentral Poland, especially the area around the cities of Kraków and Nowy Sacz; and Gargaś shows up a lot in southeastern Poland, in the provinces of Tarnów (43) and Rzeszow (80). The name Gargasz appears in legal records of the Nowy Sacz area as far back as 1561. Name experts are not sure of its origin, but think it comes from an old German first name Garge, or perhaps from a verb garguleć, "to decay."

Glozor is a mystery; there was no one by that name in Poland in 1990, and none of my sources mention it. I'm afraid I've come up empty on this one.

Zieba is usually spelled Zięba in Polish (the ę is pronounced either en or em, in this case em, so that the name sounds like "ZHEM-bah"). The probable root is zięba, "finch," although a connection with the root zięb-, "chill" is possible. But many Polish surnames derive from the names of birds, and that's probably the case here. It may have started as a nickname, perhaps because a person lived in an area with many finches, or perhaps because something about the person reminded people of a finch. As of 1990 there were 19,024 Polish citizens named Zięba, so it is a very common name. Because it is pronounced much like Ziemba, you may also sometimes see it spelled that way, that's not unusual -- there were 3,846 Ziemba's in 1990, so either spelling of the name is pretty common.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Klafki (1810, Ostpreussen), Klawki (1830, 1852 in Brazil), Klauki (1852, in Brazil), Klawke, Klaffke and Klafke (now-a-day). My ancestors came from Ostpreussen in 1852 but I think the name is not a German name but a Slavic name. One has suggest the meaning of the name may be Woodcutter, or Son of Klaus (Klauski).

The best evidence suggests that in most cases this name derives from Klawka, which is a Polish short form of the name Mikołaj = German Nikolaus (short form Klaus) = English Nicholas. I believe you are right to think the name is Slavic rather than German, because German usually forms diminutives of names by adding suffixes with the letter -L (Haensel = "little Hans (John)," Gretel = "little Margaret"); but Slavic languages use suffixes with the letter -K-, such as -ek, -ka, -ki, -ko. There are many areas in eastern Germany and western Poland where Germans and Poles lived close together, and their languages influenced each other's names, so that a Polish name might change somewhat to fit German phonetics. Thus we sometimes see the name Jahnke, which looks German; but it's actually a Germanized form of Polish or Czech "Janek, Janko." I think something similar happened with your name.

The root Klaw- is clearly a Slavic adaptation of German Klaus, so we have the following process: from Latin Nicholaus -> German Klaus -> Polish Klawek or Klawko -> German Klafke. We know the forms Klawek or Klawko appear in Polish legal records from as far back as 1391, and that they were regarded as short forms or nicknames of Polish Mikołaj (German Klaus). As time went on and Germans gained more power and influence, the name probably was modified slightly to German phonetics, and thus we finally get Klaffke or Klafke.

I should mention that this is not the only possible derivation of the name. It could conceivably come from Latin clavis, "key." Although it seems unlikely, I cannot rule it out. But clearly it is far more likely in most cases that the name derives from the name Klaus. Klawek or Klawko can be interpreted as "little Nicholas," which may mean an ancestor by that name was rather small, but more likely it was a patronymic, a name taken from one's father's name. Thus Klawek or Klawko probably meant "son of Nicholas."

I'm afraid none of these names is very common in modern-day Poland; as of 1990 there was at least 1 person named Klawka, also 1 named Klawke, but I have no further information on where they lived. There was no one named Klawki. There were 32 Polish citizens named Klawek, living in the provinces of Pila (9), Walbrzych (21), and Wroclaw (2) -- all areas with large German elements in the population. There were also 170 named Klawa and 123 named Klawe. So names formed from this root are not unknown in Poland, but they are not particularly common.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Would you help me find the meaning of the name Karpinski? I was told that it was a very common name, much like Smith in America...

Well, it's not quite that common, but it is a fairly common name. As of 1990 there were 19,174 Polish citizens named Karpiński. They lived all over the country, and the distribution seems to be fairly even -- no pattern that tells us anything special.

The ultimate root is connected in most cases to the term karp, "carp" (the fish), which is the root of a great many surnames and place-names in Poland, Russia, etc. In some cases it might also come from the term karpa, "trunk, stem," or from a short form of the first name Polikarp. I'm not sure, but I think in olden days Karp might also have been used as a first name or nickname, much the way we use nicknames such as "Catfish," "Kingfish," etc.

Names ending in -iński usually started as a reference to a place where a family lived or came from; in this case I would say the most likely candidates are the villages of Karpie in Legnica province, Karpin in Lodz province, and Karpiny in Elblag province. However, there could have been many more places named Karpin, Karpino, etc. that are too small to show up on maps, or have since changed their names, or have been absorbed by neighboring communities. But that is the basic meaning of the name: "person from Karpin/Karpino/Karpiny," -- or, to break it down further, "person from the place of the carp" (or in some cases "person from the place of Polikarp").

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am looking for information on Trojanowski...

Like most names ending in -owski, this one almost certainly started out referring to the place a person or family lived in or came from. In this case I'd expect the name of the place to be something like Trojanow, Trojanowo, Trojanowice, Trojany -- and as it happens, there are a number of villages in Poland by those names. (Those names in turn, come from the Slavic root troi-, "three," or from the first names Trojan or Trajan). I can't say which particular village your family was associated with, but if your research leads you to a particular area in Poland and you notice a village nearby with a name beginning with Trojan-, that's probably the place!

When a place name is that popular, the surnames derived from it are usually pretty popular too, and that's the case here -- as of 1990 there were 10,088 Polish citizens named Trojanowski. They lived all over the country, I don't see any particular pattern to the distribution.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I would like to know if you have any quick information on the name Mikulski. It's just and intrest so don't put too much into it. If you do have something, please e-mail it too me. Thank you...

The root of this surname is Mikuła (the Polish l with a slash through it is pronounced like our w), which is an archaic variant of the popular first name Mikołaj = English Nicholas. If surnames were being formed these days you'd expect Mikołajski, formed from the standard version of the name (and in fact that is a reasonably common name in Poland). But most surnames arose centuries ago, and back then Mikuła was still a pretty popular variant, and that's why surnames were formed from it. There are other names from this form, including Mikulak and Mikulec, but Mikulski is by far the most common.

If you wanted to translate it, you'd say Mikulski means "of, belonging to, pertaining to, associated with Nicholas." In practice it would normally mean just "Nicholas's kin," although in some cases it might possibly also come from places meaning "Nicholas's place," such as Mikułowice, Mikulice, etc. But usually names derived from those places would be Mikułowski or Mikulicki, so plain old Mikulski would usually just mean no more than "kin of Nicholas."

Surnames formed from popular first names are usually quite common, and that's the case with Mikulski: as of 1990 there were some 9,693 Polish citizens by this name. I don't see any particular pattern to the distribution, it's a moderately common name all over the country.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I will appreciate it if you could provide some information about the meaning of the name Suchodoslki. I still have relatives in Poland and even they do not know the meaning of the name. Thanks much...

The standard form of the name would be Suchodolski, and it derives from places named Suchodół and Suchodoły. These names are basically the same, Suchodoły is just plural and Suchodół singular. Both come from the roots suchy, "dry" + dół, "pit, depression," also sometimes short for dolina, "valley." So these place names mean "dry valley" or "dry valleys." Apparently sometimes places got this name because they were relatively dry, but in some cases the name may have been meant ironically, in fact the valleys were quite wet. But whether the name was meant with or without irony, "dry valley" is the basic meaning, and Suchodolski means "person or family from Suchodół or Suchodoły = "person from Dry Valley(s)."

There are a number of places in Poland with the names Suchodoły and Suchodół (quite a few on my maps, and probably more too small to show up on maps), so it's not surprising this is a fairly common surname -- 3,717 Polish citizens were named Suchodolski as of 1990. The name appears to be distributed fairly evenly all over the country, with Suchodolski's living in virtually every province, and with the larger numbers tending to be in the more densely-populated provinces. As I say, this is reasonable -- by its nature this place name could and probably did originate in many different areas all over Poland, so we'd expect the surname formed from it to have formed all over.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...The only information I have to go on is that he gave his name (on arrival in Australia) as Friedrich Wilhelm Miosge (Polish translation unknown) and that his sister Olga later married a Voight?. He also told my grandmother (his grandaughter) that he was of noble origin???...

Well, let's do Voight first, because that's easier. Voight is a Germanic form of a name that is common in German and Polish; in German it usually takes the forms Voigt or Vogt, in Polish it's Wójt (usually with suffixes added; the Polish accented o, pronounced much like oo in "wood"). This name comes from a title of a regional administrator or supervisor; a Vogt or Wójt was usually an administrator in charge of a village, but could also be in charge of some larger community or area. The term actually comes from Latin advocatus, which gives us our word "advocate" and means "called to, appointed." As of 1990 there were 500 Polish citizens named Vogt, 14 named Voigt, and 24 named Voit; as for Polish Wójt, there were thousands and thousands with names that derive from this root (although many of those names can also derive from the first name Wojciech, which has nothing to do with Voigt/Wójt). But the German forms Voigt and Voit and Vogt are the ones that probably interest you most, and as I say, they're reasonably common in Poland and probably much more so in Germany (though I have no hard data).

Now, as for Miosge, this is a tough one. The name looks and sounds to me Lithuanian, but none of my Lith. sources mention it. If it's Polish, my only guess is that it might be a variant of a name such as Miazga, borne by 2,905 Poles as of 1990; there is also a name Miozga, which I think is probably a variant form of Miazga, and it was borne by 680 Poles. Both appear to come from a term miazga, meaning "pulp, chyle." If a Pole pronounced Miosge, it would sound similar to "Miazga," so there could be a connection -- but that's just an educated guess, I have no proof whatever.

As of 1990 there was at least 1 person named Miosge in Poland, but the data on his/her file was apparently incomplete. There were 115 Poles named Miosga, and they lived in the following provinces: Czestochowa 31, Gorzow 3, Jelenia Gora , Kalisz 6, Katowice 50, Legnica 5, Opole 18, Wroclaw 1. This indicates the name is most common in south central Poland, as Czestochowa, Katowice, and Opole provinces are all right there, just a little west of Krakow. Unfortunately the source from which I got this data does not include further details such as first names and addresses, so what I give here is the only info I have access to. But Miosge and Miosga are so similar that I think they must be variant forms of the same name.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...Very recently I received some documents on my great grandfather, Antoni Zawadzki (b. 1834), from the Diocese of Drohiczyn, Poland. Through them I learned that my great grandmother had the name Joanna Wielowiejska. In one place it looks more like Wielewiejska. I could not find this name in your book. A friend in Poland tells me that this is a very important and rare name in Polish History, but over the phone did not give me any details. I am very curious, as the documents all mention that these ancestors were "szlachta" and "dworzanin". This is a surprise to me. Have you ever come across the Wielowiejski name?

I didn't list it in my book because it's not very common, but I have seen it before. In the Polish Genealogical Society of America Journal we printed my translation of a genealogical bibliography by Wlodzimierz Dworzaczek, listing books he knew of that dealt with various noble families, and he included this book:

"WIELOWIEYSKI, of Polkozic arms: Pamiatka po zmarlych s. p. Adamie i Henryku Wielowieyskich i Zofii z Deskurow Wielowieyskiej [A remembrance of the late Adam and Henryk Wielowieyski and Zofia nee Deskur Wielowieyski], published in Krakow in 1904 (contains a genealogy of the Wielowieyskis)."

So there was apparently at least one noble family named Wielowieyski, which is a rather old-fashioned spelling -- the modern spelling would be Wielowiejski. This may not have been the only noble family by this name; I'm afraid my sources on the szlachta are rather limited. [reference to Leonard Suligowski was removed since he is deceased]

As for the name itself, it is an adjectival form of the place name Wielowieś, which means "big village" -- there are at least 9 villages by that name in Poland, so it's hard to pin down which particular one the surname refers to. But at least we can say the name means, in effect, "person/family from Wielowieś," or to break it down further, "person/family from the big village." As of 1990 there were 208 Polish citizens named Wielowiejski, and another 47 who spelled the name the old-fashioned way, Wielowieyski. I don't see any real pattern to the distribution, the name is most common in the provinces of Warsaw (20), Bydgoszcz (30), Kalisz (18), Leszno (17), Poznan (18) and Wroclaw (16). Still, in your case that may not be a real problem -- if your ancestors were members of the noble Wielowieyski family, you may be able to find some information on them that will tell you exactly where they came from.

All in all, I'm moderately optimistic that you will be able to find some info -- it's so much easier when dealing with nobles, because the records kept on them were far more complete, and go back much farther, than for peasants. It may not be easy to get hold of more information on this family, but I think it's likely such information does exist. I hope Leonard or someone else can assist you in locating it. Good luck!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...I am interested in any information you could pass on to me regarding the surname Kasprzykowski ("Kasper-kush-key"), the maiden name of my paternal grandmother, or Werra (GGM's maiden name). Frank Kasprzykowski & Martha Werra emigrated to Milwaukee from Poland in 1892...

The name Kasprzykowski probably originated as a reference to a place the family came from or was otherwise connected with; I'd expect the place to have a name something like Kasprzyków, Kasprzykowo (meaning, essentially, "the place of Kasper's son, probably referring to someone who founded it or owned it at some point). Offhand I can't find any place by either name on the maps, but that's not unusual. Often surnames were generated from the names of places that were quite small -- the names may have been used only by locals, and never appeared on any map or in any gazetteer -- or that have since changed their names. If your research leads you to a particular area of Poland and you find any reference to a nearby village or settlement with a name beginning Kasprzyk-, that's probably the one your family's name came from... As of 1990 there were 530 Polish citizens named Kasprzykowski, living all over Poland but with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (74), Katowice (55), Torun (92), and Warsaw (43). (Unfortunately, I don't have access to further details, such as first names or addresses).

Werra is a tough one. It's not rare, as of 1990 there were 490 Polish citizens by that name, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (78), Gdansk (155), and Slupsk (163), all in northcentral and northwest Poland, roughly in the areas that used to be the provinces of West Prussia and Pomerania under German rule. The origin of the name is not clear, however; there is a Werre river in Lippe, and the name used to be Werne; there is also a German surname Werres which comes from the first name Severus (Latin, "strict, stern, severe"). So the surname could well come from one of those two names; many names in those areas are of German origin, as Poles and Germans mixed to a considerable extent there. But none of my sources mention it, so I can't give you a firm derivation, only my guess that it might be connected to one of the two names I mentioned.

(Of course, it might always turn out this is connected with the Slavic root vera, "faith, belief," or Latin verus, "true." This is possible if that -rr- spelling is not integral to the name, and Wera was the original form.)

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...My surnames so far ar Wnek which if I remember from your book means grandson...

Yes, Wnęk (with the nasal e, sounding like en, written as an e with a tail under it) means "grandson," and it's a pretty common name -- as of 1990 there were 3,2356 Polish citizens named Wnęk.

...Turek I have no idea what it means - I just found out about that one...

This name could come from several different roots, but in most cases the one that's relevant is turek, "Turk." Poland used to rule much of western Ukraine, and in medieval times there were frequent invasions of Turks into southeastern and southcentral Europe; some of those Turks settled there, married, and produced children. Turek generally suggests that one of them might have been an ancestor -- or else that an ancestor looked like a Turk, followed Turkish customs, etc. This, too, is a common name, there were 13,066 Polish citizens named Turek in 1990.

...Tokarczyk - I just got the correct spelling for this one - again I don't know what it means...

A tokarz is a "turner, lathe operator," and -czyk means "son of," so this name means "son of a turner." It, too is fairly common in Poland, as of 1990 there were 3,525 Polish citizens named Tokarczyk.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I should have thanked you sooner for looking up the frequency and distribution of the names I am currently researching. The information was indeed helpful! I am putting together an order from PGSA and will be getting your book. All my genealogy "stuff" has grown into quite a stack and one of my projects before the end of the year is to get another bookcase!

Each surname I am working on has taken on kind of a unique personality or identity and each has its own mystery or $64,000 question that I hope to resolve in my lifetime.

When I first posted my father's name on GenPol and said that he always told me he was from Piotrkow Trybunalski but that I had found legal documents showing the place of birth as Bugaj, GenPals (to borrow a lovely title from Tom Milke) gave me all kinds of suggestions. One member has come across a Bugaj in Galicia with the Pajaczkowski name turning up in parish records - which really blows my mind because my father always put the heat on my grandmother (his mother-in-law) for coming from "Galicia."

As I have mentioned before, I know that the name Pajaczkowski means or has to do with "spiders." Somewhere at the back of my mind I have been aware that Polish names could also reflect where a person came from: from the village of spiders, from the woods with bears, etc. I just never took a map and looked for a village named Pajaczkowo - that is until you gave me the "frequency and distribution information." Lo and behold, just a short distance WSW from Piotrkow Trybunalski is just such a place! I have spent hours and hours looking at the map of Poland over the years and never, never, never did I see this until now.

The FHC here has odd hours for working people so I don't get there very often, and when I do I don't get much more than 1-1.5 hours of research, which is next to nothing. There are so many things I want to look into and tend to feel discouraged. Thanks to GenPol and the wonderful people in it I have not given up!

Dziekuje bardzo za pomoc!

Benigne Pajaczkowski Dohms

I'm searching for information about my ancestors whose family's name is : Wojtasik. They were born in Poland in 1906 and 1915, and I have no information left about their ancestors there.

I'm afraid I have no access to information on your ancestors. All I can tell you is what the name Wojtasik means. The ending -ik means "son of, kin of," so Wojtasik would mean "son of Wojtas, kin of Wojtas."

According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut's book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], names beginning Wojt- can come either from the noun wójt, "local official, executive officer of a gmina," or from short forms of the first name Wojciech. Thus Wojtas could mean "kin of the wójt" or it could mean "kin of Wojciech."

So your ancestors may have been related to the local administrative official, or they may have been related to a man named Wojciech. There is no way to tell which is true -- only research into the family history might shed light on that.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 6,267 Polish citizens named Wojtasik. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Kielce 625, Katowice 562, Czestochowa 461, Kalisz 429, Warszawa 428, Lodz 337, Wroclaw 304, and Bydgoszcz 300. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data indicates the name is found all over the country. It is particularly common in southcentral to southeastern Poland, but not to the extent that one can conclude a given Wojtasik family came from there. The truth is, a Wojtasik family could come from just about anywhere in Poland. Again, only by tracing the family's history in records might one determine where a particular Wojtasik family came from.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Nowak surname. Any info?

It's pronounced roughly "NO-vock," and it's the most common name in Poland, borne by over 220,000 Polish citizens as of 1990. It comes from the root seen in the adjective nowy, "new." Names in the form X-ak usually mean "the X guy, son of X." In this case Nowak is the Polish equivalent of the English surname Newman -- it just means "new guy." It could have referred to a person who had recently moved into the area, one who had begun a new life by converting to Christianity, one who had set up on a new farm, or something like that. One of the reasons it's so common may be that it can mean so many things. (It's also extremely common among Czechs, although they spell it with a v instead of a w).

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Yes, there is one more to add to the confusion. There is a town of Peplin in the Lesno parish in Bydgoszcz. The story goes that in 1665 Queen Maria Ludwika gave a grant of land to Micolaj Peplinski where this town of Peplin now is. Lesno is adjacent to the parish of Lipusz in Gdansk. Many Peplinski s in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan come from these two parishes as well as some nearby ones.

The only information in the gazeteer (entry #3) is that this town exists in the Lesno parish and that in 1693 Erasmus Janowski charged Wojciech Peplinski of Lendy and Skoszewo (villages in the parish of Lesno, my family is from Skoszewo) with letting his (Wojciech) cattle graze on his (Erasmus) land. Now I wonder if Wojciech is a rogue son of honorable Micolaj!

Blanche

Note: Blanche and I had been discussing how the surname Pepliński, borne by 3,151 Poles as of 1990, can come from Peplin, an alternate form of the name of the town of Pelplin in Gdansk province, or from the name of the village Pęplino in Słupsk province. Blanche's point is that there is yet another possible source for this name!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Does anyone out there know what nationality the name PIERITZ is?

I can't find anything on that exact spelling, but to me it looks and sounds like a Germanized version of a Slavic name originally ending in -icz or -ice, something similar. Unfortunately, there are quite a few possible derivations, and I can't say which is most likely to be right. I think it is worth mentioning that the German name for the Polish town of Pyrzyce, in Szczecin province, is Pyritz -- and in terms of pronunciation that sounds awfully close to Pieritz. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say this may be a Germanized name deriving ultimately from the name of the town Pyrzyce, or from the same linguistic root as that name.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Writing about the surname Plishka, my mothre's maiden name. [PS, Paul Plishka, the opera singer, is my 2nd, 3rd? cousin....same gr,gr,gndfather.]

On page 390 of the second edition you have Pliszka (a wagtail.)

My grandpa told us that Plishka (transliteration of the cyrillic) meant a pickax. I looked in my Uke-Eng. dictionary (by Andrusyshen) and sure enough that is what it has. Also means a wedge, apparently that used in splitting wood. Then I noticed that plish means baldness. Maybe a long time ago the kozaks used pickaxes to shave their head!

Would any of these concepts for the meaning of Plishka (Ukr. way) or Pliszka (Polish and German way) be useful in your next edition?

Somebody told my Mother a long time ago that they said a Plishka was a guy who made barrels or was the guy who strapped the metal around a barrel? I can't find a reliable documentation about this.

Unfortunately, none of my sources give anything very firm about this. It's not unusual, however, to find that Polish or Ukrainian words have more than one meaning. Consider "nut" in English. It can be a delicious edible item (full of fat, damn it!), a piece of metal with a particular shape and function, a person with a screw loose, etc. The same thing happens in other languages, and many Polish words have multiple meanings, some of which are slang or regional usages. The best we can do is note the standard meanings and, when possible, any other meanings we can learn about that might be relevant.

In any case, thanks for these notes! I have saved them and hope to incorporate them into the next revision of my book.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Just wanted to see if you have any information on the origin or meaning of my ancestry surnames: Wojda and Lapinski [Lapinski is covered in a separate note.]

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 5,923 Polish citizens named Wojda, pronounced roughly "VOY-dah." They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Warsaw 1,559, Kielce 352, Siedlce 351, and Skierniewice 595. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data indicates the name is found most often in the central to east-central part of the country.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions Wojda in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as far back as 1478. As with many names, there are several possible derivations. One is from Hungarian wojda, which derives from Polish wojewoda," literally "war-leader," a term used for the ruler of a large area, also sometimes used as a Slavic equivalent of the Latin-based term "palatine" -- in Polish the term województwo, "province," originally meant "territory of a wojewoda." In fact we have the English term voivode from that word, although it's not used very often. In any case, a number of Polish surnames actually turn out to have been influenced by Hungarian, since there was a lot of contact between Hungary and Poland over the centuries. Wojda can come from the Hungarian adaptation of the Polish term for a palatine or war-leader.

But Rymut says Wojda can also come from first names beginning Woj-, such as Wojciech or Wojsław, which ultimately come from the noun woj, "warrior." Thus Wojda could have developed as a nickname or affectionate short form of Wojciech or Wojsław, much as Eddie developed from Edward in English.

Both derivations, from Hungarian wojda and from old given names beginning Woj-, are plausible. The only way to determine whether that derivation, or the one from place names, is more correct would be by tracing the family history as far back as possible. At some point you might uncover information that sheds light on the matter. Without more details of that sort, it is impossible to tell from the name alone which derivation applies in a given case.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am trying to determine whether the following surnames are variants of each other or are unrelated common. ... 1) Żurowski (possibly from Lestowitza, [spelling], western Galicia), Szczurowski (Nowy Śacz), Zierowsky (Baronial family in Galicia), and Żurek Żurowski (it occurs in Radautz, Bukovina)

Names beginning with żur- are so common that I'd hesitate linking them without good evidence. For instance, in 1990 there were 2,572 Polish citizens named Żurowski, and 12,623 named Żurek. While they probably come from the same linguistic root, and in isolated cases a Żurek and a Żurowski family might have actually been linked at one time, in most cases the names probably rose independently in different times and places. As I say, without evidence that they're linked, I would normally expect them to be independent.

I would be a little surprised if Szczurowski fits in there - although you never know with Polish names, especially once non-Poles have messed with them. But the root of the name is szczur, "rat." There are places with names like Szczurowa, which would mean, essentially, "rat village," "rat town," and that's probably where the surname comes from, meaning "person from rat town." I wouldn't think people would be in a hurry to accept such a name, and I would expect any Żurek or Żrowski to object strenuously to any confusion of the names!

... Polinkiewicz (Sarny, Volhynia) and Polingewicz (Czerniowce, Bukovina) ...

Now these two could well be linked. From a linguistic standpoint, it would not be at all surprising if they were connected. Subtract the suffix "-[i]ewicz," meaning "son of," and you have Polink and Poling. In Polish, German, and many other languages a final g tends to devoice and be pronounced as k, so that Poling would sound much like Polink. So it is entirely credible that these two names could be different forms of the same name.

However, surname analysis seldom digs up anything definitive and incontrovertible. Once in a while a name will have some aspect that lets you make statements about it with certainty -- but not too often. The most I can do is make general statements based on the probability as my experience leads me to assess it. But in almost all cases, names don't carry enough information to let you draw definitive conclusions. At best, they confirm conclusions drawn on the basis of other, less ambiguous evidence and data.

Now that I've followed proper scholarly procedure by covering my butt, I hope this information is some use to you anyway!

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.


 

Do you have any information on my surname. I would be very interested to know.

In Polish Kawka is pronounced roughly "KOFF-kah." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched online), there were 5,831 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country with largest numbers in the following provinces: Warsaw 685, Bydgoszcz 381, Konin 215, Lublin 540, Lodz 200, and Zamosc 621. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data basically tells us a family by this name could come from anywhere in Poland; the name is not associated with any one region of the country.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], saying it appears in records as early as 1371. He says it comes from the noun kawka, which can be a diminutive of kawa, "coffee," but can also mean "the jackdaw," a kind of bird. I suppose an ancestor might have gotten a nickname meaning "little coffee," but surnames from words for birds are very common in Polish, and I think the jackdaw connection would prove true in most cases. It might mean an ancestor lived in an area where jackdaws were common, or could imitate their singing, or wore clothes that reminded people of their coloring -- some perceived association along those lines would probably account for the name.

Copyright © 2003 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I am a member of both the PGS of America, and PGS of Michigan. Yesterday a colleague of mine from PGSMI allowed me to use a copy of your most recent edition of Polish Surnames. Though I had seen it for sale at our meetings, I only flipped through the pages, and placed the book back on the table. However, having the book in hand to read, I find it most interesting, and thank you for the many Poles who have, and will read the material, which must have taken much labor to create.

I appreciate your kind words. I put a lot of work into the book, in hopes that it would prove helpful to many people for years to come. It's gratifying to hear from folks who think I did a good job!

... I now get to the point. My name is Bob Postula. My dad was Walter Postula. His brother was Stanley Pastula (note the Po... vs. the Pa.... I have identified that my true Polish name is Pastuła. I have previously had information regarding the distribution of Pastuła (which I have temporarily misplaced), and was very suprised in Polish Surnames to see that Postuła is in fact a valid name in Poland.

Yes, I think Postuła and Pastuła are both valid surnames. Rymut's book Nazwiska Polakow mentions Pastuła as coming from the basic root past-, having to do with animals' feeding (same root in English "pasture"). He does not, however, mention Postuła under the root post-, "to fast." I'm not sure if that's because the name is not all that common, or if because in many cases, as in yours, Postuła is just a variant of Pastuła. But personally I consider it likely there are at least some instances where Postuła developed as an independent name, not just a variation of Pastuła.

It is worth stressing that very often po- and pa- are just spelling variations of each other. The Polish o is not pronounced like the o in English "go," it is not as deep in the throat, and in fact often sounds very close to Polish "a" (as in English "father"). In fact, there are some words where pa- is a variant of the common Polish prefix po-, often with a diminutive or contemptuous connotation, e.g., pagórek, hillock, comes from the root gór-, "mountain," or pachołek, "page, farmhand," from the same root as chłop, "peasant." I doubt that's particularly relevant in this case because in Pastuła and Postuła the Pa-/Po- is not a prefix -- it's an integral part of the root, past-/post- + a suffix -uła, as opposed to po-/pa- prefixed to stuła.

Still, it is instructive that Poles recognize pa- and po- as closely related. It tends to confirm what I said earlier, that Postuła is, in many cases, a variation of Pastuła. But not necessarily in all cases!

... The purpose of this request is to impose upon you to please look up Postuła in Rymut's work and advise me of the distribution of the 81 Postułas. Thank you for your time, and effort.

The province breakdown for Postuła is as follows:

POSTUŁA: 81; Warsaw 3, Ciechanow 1, Jelenia Gora 1, Katowice 8, Kielce 26, Krakow 3, Legnica 5, Opole 1, Radom 30, Rzeszow 1, Wroclaw 2.

This distribution is interesting -- the numbers may not be large enough to constitute a valid statistical universe, but it does appear that the name hails primarily from the area of Kielce and Radom provinces, a little southeast of central Poland.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Can anyone tell me what the origin and meaning of the surname Slizewski is ?

Names ending in -ewski and -owski usually -- not always, but usually -- derive from place names ending in -ew[o/a] or -ow[a/o]. There are other possibilities, too, as suffixes often were dropped when -ski was added to a place name, so places with names ending in -owice or -owica or -ówka, etc., also must be considered. But the rule of thumb is, first look for a likely place with the endings -ew, -ewa, -ewo, -ow, -owa, -owo.

My maps show only one place that seems a likely candidate for this name: a village Ślizów in modern-day Kalisz province, about 5 km. south of the town of Syców, northeast of Wrocław; I would guess the records for this village were probably kept at the church in Syców, although I can't be sure.

There may well be other places this name came from, too small to show up on maps, or now bearing other names, or absorbed into other communities. But this is the only place I can find that seems the likely source of the surname Slizewski. By the way, the ultimate source of names beginning with Sliz- is the root śliz, a thick liquid, also (?) the loach.

As of 1990 there were 137 Polish citizens named Ślizewski, scattered in various provinces, with the largest concentration by far in the province of Gdansk (95). This suggests in most cases the surname may have come from some other source than the Ślizów I mentioned above, since the provinces of Gdansk and Kalisz are a fairly good distance apart.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Just wanted to see if you have any information on the origin or meaning of my ancestry surnames: Wojda and Lapinski [Wojda is covered in a separate note.]

Lapinski in Polish is usually spelled with a slash through the L and an accent over the N, so it should look this this when typed - Łapiński.

Łapiński is pronounced roughly "wah-PEEN-skee." As of 1990 there were 8,410 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 899, Białystok 2,731, Łomża 505, and Suwałki 460. This data indicates the name is found all over the country but is concentrated to a significant extent in northeastern Poland.

Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions this surname in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], saying it can have two derivations. It can refer to the name of a village or settlement or other place the family was connected with at some point centuries ago, with a name beginning Łapin- or something similar. He specifically mentions Łapino in Kolbudy district of former Gdansk province as one place that some Łapińskis are known to have come from. But there are other places with similar names that this surname could refer to.

Also this surname can come directly from the root seen in the noun łapa, "paw," and in the verb łapać, "to grab, paw." Łapiński could be interpreted literally as "[kin] of the paw" or "[kin] of the one who grabs." So there are at least two possible derivations.

I would add this: since this surname is especially common in northeastern Poland, it is worthwhile checking to see if there is a specific place it might refer to in that area. There are several villages with the name Łapy plus a second part near Białystok -- Łapy-Dębowizna, Łapy-Pluśniaki, Łapy-Szołajdy -- as well as a village with the simple name Łapy. Since they're very close to each other, chances are at one time they were all part of one big settlement or estate, but later were subdivided and distinguished by adding a second part to the name.

I must say that if a given Łapiński family does turn out to have roots in northeastern Poland, "one from Łapy" is a very plausible origin for this surname. But if a family turned out to come from the Gdansk area, a connection with that village of Łapino becomes more likely. And you never know when the name may simply have referred to the kin of a guy with big hands, or one who tended to grab for everything. As I said, only research into a specific family's history might clear that up... But if your research leads you back to northeastern Poland, I'd say "one from Łapy" is a very good possibility.

If you'd like to see a map of where Łapy is, go to www.pilot.pl and enter LAPINO and then click on "Pokaz miasto." It will show links to Łapy and Łapy-Kołpaki, another nearby village. They all are right together, so just click on the first one. You'll get a map showing the Łapy area, as well as a smaller map showing where it is located in terms of Poland as a whole. You can print the map, save it, zoom in, etc.

If the Łapino near Gdansk turns out to be relevant to your name, you can get a map of it, too, at www.pilot.pl, by searching for LAPINO. It actually shows up as both LAPINO and LAPINO KARTUSKIE ("the Lapino near Kartuzy"). Click on either one and you'll get a map.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Does someone have access to Rymut's book? If so, could you look up the name Szeroki / Seroki / or Sroki and tell all info. listed for those name(s)? I am trying to find the areas where they lived.

Szeroki is far less common than I would have expected. The book lists both Szeroki and Szeroka, and it's reasonable to assume they are simple masculine and feminine forms, respectively, and should be combined. Here is the data if you combine them:

SZEROKI: total 74; breakdown by province: Białystok 10, Katowice 10, Legnice, 10, Leszno 9, Opole 7, Rzeszow 1, Tarnow 1, Torun 3, Wroclaw 20, Zielone Gora 3

Seroka is listed (but no entry for Seroki!); there were 1,452, living all over the country. The provinces with the largest numbers were: Warsaw 127, Ciechanow 52, Elblag 64, Gdansk 217, Lublin 158, Olsztyn 57, Ostrołęka 110, Torun 61, Zamosc 129. But as I say, there were smaller numbers in virtually every other province.

There was no listing for Sroki. Sroka is listed, and is quite common, with 13,678 bearers, again living all over the country. The largest numbers were in the provinces of: Czestochowa 496, Katowice 1,625, Kielce 743, Krakow 1,886, Nowy Sacz 402, Poznan 728, Rzeszow 529, Tranow 980, Wroclaw 523.

The question here is whether we're dealing with a name from the adjective szeroki, "wide, broad," or from the root sroka, "magpie." The fact that there is no Seroki makes me wonder if Seroka is simply a variant of the noun sroka, not a feminine form of a variant of the adjective meaning "wide." Szeroki/Szeroka, on the other hand, are probably from the adjective. Rymut's book on Polish surname derivations doesn't say, and I could be dead wrong, but that's my best guess.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... Within the past year I've become acquainted with some distant relatives from Poland... He insists that the Wicinski family is Polish nobility...originally coming from an area near Lithuania and then fleeing, while wounded from some war around 1840 or so, to the area near Tarnobrzeg. Do you have any information about Wicinski? ...

Wiciński probably derives ultimately from a short form of a first name such as Witold or Wincenty; most likely it comes directly from a place named Wicin, Wicina, or Wicie (there are several), meaning a person who came from that place, and the place in turn got that name because it was owned or founded by a fellow named Witold, Wincenty, etc. It is a pretty common name in Poland. As of 1990 there were 1,936 Poles with this name; they lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (172), Bydgoszcz (148), Lodz (110), Lublin (144), Płock (202), Radom (103), and Tarnobrzeg (122). I don't see any real pattern to that distribution. Most likely the name arose in several different areas independently, and as I said, you'd expect it originally indicated some association of a person with a place named Wicin, Wicina, Wicie, etc.

Your particular Wicinski family may well have been noble, but I have no way of knowing. When anyone shows interest in Polish nobility, about which I know little. The editor of White Eagle, the Journal of the Polish Nobility Association Foundation, has an extensive library on European and especially Polish nobility. He does not do genealogical research, he is a heraldic artist by avocation. But he will look in his library to see if he can find anything that might be applicable. If he spends any significant amount of time researching for you, it would be only right to offer him some monetary compensation (from what I hear, his rates are quite reasonable).

... Also, my one grandfather's surname was Bondel. He was from the village of Kepice near Radom. (I understand there is more than one Kepice) He was 1/8th French. I've met other people of Polish descent with French surnames, is this common? ...

As of 1990 there were some 176 Poles named Bondel. The list of provinces they lived in is fairly short, so I will repeat it: Warsaw 17, Gdansk 1, Gorzow 1, Katowice 16, Kielce 2, Koszalin 3, Legnica 1, Lublin 66, Opole 4, Radom 24, Siedlce 14, Skierniewice 4, Suwałki 9, Szczecin 1, Walbrzych 4, Wroclaw 9.

It is not extremely common to find Poles with French surnames, but it happens often enough that scholars are not surprised when they run into it. Often French names have changed spelling to fit the way they sound according to Polish phonetic values, rather than French (e. g., Descourt -> Deskur). Poland has always been a country willing and eager to maintain ties with the West, so it's not too unusual to find Poles with names of French or Italian origin (though, as I say, sometimes you'd never know by the spelling!).

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... My research into my paternal Polish ancestors is going well however, I have run into some problems with my maternal Grandfather who was Ukrainian. He had listed on his petition for naturalization that he was born in Zerde. He had also mentioned to the family that when he was a boy he often crossed into Poland on family business (giving the impression that he lived rather close to what would be considered the Polish border). He spoke Ukrainian, Polish and Russian. I have not had any luck in finding a village, town or city named Zerde. Can anyone be of assistance on this?

I looked at a map of Ukraine and found only one place that seemed a likely candidate from a linguistic point of view: Zherdya, a little village a few km. northwest of Kam'anets'-Podil's'kiy, which the Poles called Kamieniec Podolski. This name could easily be modified into Zerde. The problem was, this place is nowhere near the Polish border.

But then the 3rd cup of coffee kicked in and my brain started to function. I said to myself, "You idiot, if she's talking about her maternal grandfather living there when he was a boy, it's not the current Polish border that matters. Where was the border earlier this century?" I looked at a historical map, and BINGO! Up until 1939 the Polish border extended east into western Ukraine, to within a few kilometers of Kamieniec Podolski (earlier in history, the border was even farther east, but by this century this land was no longer part of Polish territory). So if your grandfather lived near Zherdya from, say 1918-1939, the Polish border would, indeed, have been only a good walk away, maybe no more than an hour, if that much. So if I were a betting man, I'd bet good money Zherdya is the place you're looking for.

... Also, my Grandfather entered the U.S. through Canada in 1916. He settled in Cleveland, Ohio where he married and had a family. However, he was an illegal until 1945. On his petition he stated that he entered the U.S. under the name Vasil Parajevski but that his true name was Walter (Sava) Waselenchuk. I know that Waselenchuk is a Western Ukraine surname however, Parajevski sounds more Polish than Ukrainian to me. Does anyone have any insight into the surname Parajevski?

Waselenchuk is indeed a Ukrainian name, meaning basically "little Vasily's son." Parajewski could be Polish, linguistically it makes sense, but as of 1990 there was only one Parajewski in Poland, living in the province of Lodz. But the question is, how reliable is that spelling? We could very well be talking about Porajewski, the a and o are often confused. Just for the heck of it, I looked in the Slownik geograficzny, and found there was a village called either Parajówka or Porajówka in Kamieniec Podolski district -- in other words, not far from Zherdya -- served by both Catholic and Orthodox parishes in Czarnokozince, with some 420 inhabitants as of the turn of the century; the village took its name from its founder, Bishop Kobielski, who was of the Poraj clan and bore the Poraj coat of arms.

Linguistically speaking, Parajewski could very well have started as meaning "person from Parajówka or Porajówka." In Polish we often see names from -ówka ending up with adjectival forms in -ewski in Polish, even if -owski might technically be more correct, so that's not a major problem. I strongly suspect that's the origin of this surname, "person from Porajówka." It could be regarded as either Polish or Ukrainian, because in this particular case there would not be a major difference in how the name sounded, regardless of which language it came from. Most likely a more accurate rendering, however, would be a Ukrainian form, Porayevs'kiy or Parayevs'kiy (which would be spelled Porajewski or Parajewski by Poles), simply because the place from which the name derived is now in Ukraine and presumably ethnic Ukrainians were more numerous there than Poles. But as I said, in this case it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference, there would be very little difference in sound no matter which language the name started in.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

gazetteer

JAWORSKI is pronounced roughly "yah-VORE-skee," and it is a common name among Poles. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 44,104 Polish citizens by that name. They lived all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area; a Jaworski family could come from anywhere. .

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He explains that it appears in records as early as 1386, and comes from the Polish noun jawor, "sycamore." Jaworski is actually an adjective meaning "of the sycamore." Thus it might have begun as a way of referring to an ancestor who lived in or near a particularly prominent stand of sycamores; or he may have sold or worked with sycamore wood, or something along those lines. Almost any connection with sycamores could allow this name to get started.

But in most cases it probably refers to a family's connection with any of a number of villages, settlements, etc. named Jawor, Jawory, Jaworze, etc. -- which, in turn, meant something like "place of the sycamores." There are places by those names all over Poland, which explains why the surname Jaworski appears all over Poland. The only way to tell which particular Jawor or Jawory or Jaworze your family came from would be through genealogical research, which would help you pinpoint exactly where in Poland your family came from, and thus would let you focus on finding a place with a name beginning Jawor- in that specific area, rather than having to search all over the country.

I should add that the same basic word for "sycamore" appears in other Slavic languages, so that this surname could also appear among, oh, Czechs or Slovaks or Ukrainians. Normally we'd find the name spelled JAVORSKY in those cases -- as a rule, the spelling JAWORSKI would generally be associated with Poles. But spellings are not always consistent, and if a Czech named Javorsky had papers filled out by a German or Polish official, that official might spell the name the way he was used to, JAWORSKI (Polish) or JAWORSKY (German). In other words, without more info it's impossible to be certain this name is Polish in a given case. But usually it would be.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Have you any info relating to the name Bartodejski - later changed to Bardodej and then to Bartodej (after my ancestors came to the US)?

It's virtually certain Bartodejski is a variation of the name usually spelled Bartodziejski. That name is pronounced roughly "bar-toe-JAY-skee." Without detailed research into the family history I can't say why or how it came to be spelled Bartodejski (which would sound more like "bar-toe-DAY-skee"). It could be simply a misspelling or misreading; or maybe the name was simplified to make it easier for English-speakers; or maybe the family came from an area in Poland where the local dialect avoided the Polish tendency to turn simple D into the j-sound spelled DZI. Any of these could be a factor. But however you slice it, I feel 99.9% confident the name we're talking about is Bartodziejski.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 96 Polish citizens named Bartodziejski (and none named Bartodejski). The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Gdansk 10, Lodz 14, Sieradz 13, Slupsk 13, and Wroclaw 18. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name is found all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1488, and refers to any of a number of villages named Bartodzieje (which in turn comes from the noun bartodziej, "beekeeper"). So Bartodziejski started out meaning "one from Bartodzieje," which in turn means "[place of] the beekeepers." The only way to establish which Bartodzieje your ancestors came from would be through detailed genealogical research; the surname alone gives us no clue.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I've been doing my family's research for many years, but no one here knows enough to know nor remembers what certain names may represent.

The name I would like to submit is Bednorz. If this helps any, the Bednorz's came in 1854/5 to Panna Maria, Texas, and so most likely came with the Schleisen's (sorry on the spelling).

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. Bednorz is pronounced roughly "BED-nosh," and is a distinctively Silesian variation of standard Polish Bednarz, which means "cooper." Many names in Silesia (or Schlesien in German, Śląsk in Polish) take -a- in standard Polish and turn it into -o-, so it's quite normal to find Bednarz become Bednorz in that part of the country. The name just means the same as Cooper in English.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,556 Polish citizens named Bednorz, with the largest numbers in the southwestern provinces of Katowice, 1,159, and Opole, 229. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. (By comparison, there were 13,140 Polish citizens who spelled the name Bednarz).

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Any information [about Duszynski] welcome. Thank you...

In Polish Duszynski is spelled with an accent over the N, and is pronounced roughly "doo-SHIN-skee." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 6,436 Polish citizens by that name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any particular area..

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says that the name generally would refer to the name of a place with which the family was associated at some point centuries ago, a place with a name beginning Dusz-. He specifically mentions Duszno, in Trzemeszno district of Bydgoszcz province, in northwestern Poland. When he mentions a specific place, it's because research done by scholars has conclusively linked the name with that place; it does not rule out possible connections with other places with similar names.

So Duszyński would generally mean "one from Duszno," or possibly some other place with a similar name. Offhand, however, I could find no other place with a name that fits. So I suspect "one from Duszno" would turn out to be applicable in most cases. At one time the name may have been associated with a noble family that owned an estate at Duszno; but as the centuries passed it came to be used as well by peasants living in that area, or working for the original noble Duszyńskis. I have no sources that conclusively prove that's what happened; but it is what usually happened with surnames derived from place names.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am interested in knowing the meaning of the surname- Golombek.

This is an Anglicized spelling of a name that in Polish is written Golabek, with a tail under the A and a slash through the L. Gołąbek is pronounced roughly "go-WOME-beck." The Ł is pronounced like our W, and the Ą, when it comes before B or P, sounds like "om." So even though it seems odd to us, Gołąbek is pronounced that way.

Names in Poland were often spelled more than one way because some sounds can be written more than one way. It's not at all unusual to see Ą spelled -ON- or -OM-, so that even in Poland you sometimes see this name spelled Gołombek. Then when Poles came to English-speaking countries the slash through the L was often just dropped, since English-speakers had no clue what to make of it. That's how Gołąbek can logically and sensibly come to be modified to Golombek.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1399 and comes from the noun gołąbek, which means literally "little pigeon." It may not sound complimentary in English, but in Polish it probably began as an affectionate nickname, with no slight or hint of mockery intended. Poles would think that's a sweet thing to call a nice person, one they were fond of.

Incidentally, the plural of that noun is gołąbki~, which is the name of a dish Poles are very fond of, a stuffed cabbage leaf. You often see the name spelled a jillion different ways, all pronounced roughly "go-WOMP-kee." It means "little pigeons," probably because there was something about the shape originally that reminded people of little pigeons (?). Whenever Polish food is served at a restaurant or dinner somewhere, you can be sure gołąbki will be on the menu. But it's unlikely the surname and the food have any connection -- it's probably just coincidence the same term ended up applied in such different ways.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 5,060 Polish citizens named Gołąbek. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area. There were also 333 Poles who spelled it Gołombek. If I were you I'd keep my eyes open for either spelling, as a given family might appear as Gołąbek in one record, Gołombek in another; spelling was often inconsistent. But for all intents and purposes, these are just spelling variations of the same basic name.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My last name is Harasim, the only place I’ve seen my name is on a list of awards for Virtuti Militari, no other place. I would greatly appreciate any help.

Harasim is pronounced roughly "hah-RAH-sheem," and it developed as one of several different forms from a first name more common among Ukrainians (possibly also Belarusians) than Poles. Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], and says it comes ultimately from Greek Gerasimos, from a term meaning "honor, privilege."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,765 Polish citizens named Harasim, another 144 who bore the spelling Harasym, 511 who spelled it Harazim, and so forth. The largest numbers of those who spelled it Harasim lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 112, Białystok 99, Lublin 165, Siedlce 205, Suwałki 293, and Zamosc 256. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data indicates that, as we'd expect from its origin, the surname tends to be most common in eastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine and Belarus.

So about all this name tells us is that you had an ancestor named Harasim, who was probably of Ukrainian descent. Since Poles and Ukrainians have mixed a great deal over the years, it's not at all odd that this name is found in Poland; but I strongly suspect it's also fairly common in Ukraine. However, I have no sources of data for that country.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My surname is Jalowiec, and I wasn't able to find anything about it on your Website (which is excellently done, by the way). I've come to the conclusion (though it may be wrong) that the -owiec was at one point -owicz. I was wondering if you had any information regarding the name.

This is a perfect example of how tricky name origins can be. The suffixes -owiec and -owicz can often mean more or less the same thing, or the meanings of words X-owicz and X-owiec will generally prove to be related in some obvious way. So your reasoning is perfectly logical -- and the conclusion is probably wrong, defeated by a simple fact you could not have foreseen!

Jalowiec in Polish is usually spelled with a slash through the L and which is pronounced much like our W. So it's Jałowiec, pronounced roughly "yah-WOVE-yets" (the second syllable rhymes more or less with the English words "trove" and "grove," although the Polish O isn't quite as long and deep as in those English words).

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], and explains that the basic root is seen in the verb jałowieć (accent over the c), which means "to become barren, sterile," and in the adjective jałowy, "barren, sterile." So it would be perfectly natural to conclude Jałowiec would mean "son of the barren one, kin of the barren one." And in fact I suppose in isolated cases that is what the name meant (especially if it was meant ironically, as in "son of the supposedly barren one").

But it happens there is a noun jałowiec that somehow came to be used as the name for the juniper tree (perhaps because the juniper can grow on ground otherwise seemingly barren?). Since there is that specific noun that sounds just like the name, we'd have to figure in most cases the surname did point to some association with that tree. That's the conclusion Rymut comes to.

So a Jałowiec ancestor presumably lived near a prominent juniper, or did something with juniper berries -- something of the sort. Clearly it made sense to those who knew him to call him "Juniper," and the name came to be applied to his kin as well, until it became established as their surname. We cannot absolutely rule out the interpretation "son/kin of the barren one," but it's not likely to be right in most cases. After all, how often would a barren one have a son? And besides, saying Jałowiec has nothing to do with "juniper" is like saying the English surname Baker has nothing to do with bakers! When the name and the common noun match exactly, there will usually be a connection.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 722 Polish citizens named Jałowiec. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Czestochowa 48, Katowice 139, and Tarnow 196. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name tends to be most common in southcentral to southeastern Poland, although not exclusively.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Have you any information on the meaning or origin of the surname Kilian? Alternate spellings with which I am familiar would include Killian, Kieljan, Kelijan.

I have been unable to locate any information on the name but I have been told that it is an old Polish name. I know that there are Kilians living in Krakow and my family came from southern Poland.

In Polish the name is pronounced much as it is in English, roughly "KEEL-yahn" or "kee-LEE-yahn." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 3,232 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Gdansk 147, Katowice 249, Kielce 181, Lublin 145, Opole 206, Rzeszow 141, and Tarnow 558. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data does indicate that the name tends to be more common in the south than in the north, but there are Kilians living all over the country. The Directory says there were 55 living in Krakow province.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the first name Kilian, which is thought to be of Celtic origin. It appears in Poland as early as the 13th century, and its variants include Kilijan and Kielijan. So all the name signifies is that an ancestor went by this name.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My great-grandmother came from Poland with my grandfather and his sister. Their surname was Kondratowitcz. That is the spelling on my great-grandmothers holy card from her death. I have heard it spelled Kondratowicz. They shortened it to Conrad in the US.

Any help you can give me with this would be great.

The standard spelling of this name in Polish would be Kondratowicz, pronounced roughly "con-drah-TOE-veech." The -owicz part means "son of," so it means "son of Kondrat." Name experts argue over that name; some say it comes from ancient Greek Kodratos, later adapted into Latin as Codratus and Condratus. It may actually have started out originally as Latin Quadratus, "square." Other experts dismiss that, saying it is a variation of the Germanic name we know as Conrad (which appears historically in a variety of forms, including Kondrad, Kondrat, Kindrat, Kunrat, etc.).

Whichever origin is technically correct, I think there's no question at some point people began to associate this name with German Konrad and English Conrad. When your ancestors changed it to Conrad in the U.S., they were picking the English name that most closely corresponded with their Polish name. Kondratowicz means "son of Conrad," just as Conrad does in English. So there was a good reason for them to change it to what they did.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 2,086 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with some concentration in the nrotheastern provinces of Białystok, 163, Olsztyn 232, and Suwałki 248. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. So a family by this name could come from anywhere in Poland, although northeastern Poland is just a little more likely than anywhere else in the country.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I recently married a man whose last name is Kowalewicz. I did not see it in your list of polish names. Can you tell me anything about it or where I can look?

Kowalewicz, pronounced roughly "ko-vah-LEH-veech," is one of about a jillion Polish surnames from the noun kowal, "smith." The -ewicz part means "son of," so Kowalewicz means "son of the smith" -- much like the English surname Smithson.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,297 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area. A Kowalewicz family could come from practically anywhere.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am hoping you can give me any information on the last name of Lasowski. This is my mothers maiden name and I am trying to gather as much information as I can on it. I would also appreciate any information you could give me as who to go to in researching the history or genealogy of this particular name. My grandfather says we are of noble lineage, my grandmother would just roll her eyes at him.

In Polish Lasowski is pronounced roughly "lah-SOFF-skee." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 71 Polish citizens by that name. They were scattered in small numbers all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the root in the noun las, "forest, woods." It would mean basically "of the woods," and as such probably began as a reference to a place where the family lived. It might very well refer to a specific village or settlement named Lasy or Lasow or Lasowo or Lasowice, but the only way to establish that is through detailed research into the history of the specific family in question. From the name alone there's no way to tell.

Surnames in the form X-owski mean literally "of the X's _," where the blank is to be filled in with something so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out -- usually "kin" or "place." So in some cases X-owski can mean "kin of [the] X." But most often it refers to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago, a place name beginning with the X part, which may have various suffixes that were detached before the -owski was added. If the family was noble, they owned an estate there; if not, they lived and worked there. So while X-owski can just mean "kin of X," it generally means "one from the place of X." That's why I say the name probably means "one from Lasy or Lasow or Lasowo or Lasowice." There are quite a few places with names that qualify, which is why it's impossible to say which one your particular Lasowskis came from.

At one time centuries ago anyone with a surname ending in -owski was noble. In fact, anyone with any kind of surname was noble. But by the 17th century peasants were beginning to use surnames, too, and from then on the form of the name tells us nothing about the social status of the people bearing it. So if you have records from the 1500s, say, mentioning your Lasowskis, it's virtually certain they were nobles who took their name from the name of their estate, which had a name beginning Lasow-. But by the 1700s Lasowski could mean nothing more than "one from Lasy or Lasow, etc."

I'm afraid genealogical research is almost always a do-it-yourself project, unless you're pretty wealthy and are willing to pay a professional to do it for you. I don't know anyone who does that, and don't know the names of any researchers; but you can find some online if you search. For instance, there's a list of pros on Cyndi's List at http://www.cyndislist.com/poland.htm#Professional.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I was wondering if you could help me out with the surname Marszalek.

Marszalek in Polish is written with a slash through the L, which sounds like our W, so Marszałek sounds like "mar-SHAH-weck." It comes from the noun marszałek, "marshal, medieval administrator of the royal court; also a military rank." So the surname started out indicating an ancestor was a marshal, or had some close connection to one.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 13,584 Polish citizens by this name MARSZAŁEK, living in large numbers all over the country. A family by this name could come from practically anywhere in Poland.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

It [Pijarski] seems to be a famous name but not much history on it.

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "pee-YAR-skee." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 141 Polish citizens named Pijarski. The largest number, 91, lived in the southeastern province of Radom; the rest were scattered in much smaller numbers all over the country. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. But this information does suggest the Radom area is where one is most likely to find this name.

None of my sources discuss the origin of this name, but I think it pretty clearly comes from the Polish adjective pijarski, which means "of the Piarists," referring to a Catholic religious order that founded and maintained schools in Europe. I don't think they're much heard of in America, though apparently they have at least one school in Kentucky (http://www.geocities.com/piarist/). In Polish the surname Pijarski surely meant something like "[kin] of the Piarist" or perhaps "[student] of the Piarists," referring to one who studied at a Piarist school. In other words, it refers to some association of an ancestor with the Piarists, either with an individual or an institution connected with the order. Only detailed research into the history of the individual family might uncover more information on the exact nature of the connection.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

If you have any information on the Pisarski family name then you can e-mail the information to me. My great-grandfather was born in Poland and I would love to know where the name comes from.

In Polish Pisarski is pronounced roughly "pee-SAR-skee," with the second syllable rhyming more or less with "car." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 4,310 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it's simply an adjective from the noun pisarz, "scribe, clerk," and thus would mean literally "of the scribe." It can mean "kin of the scribe, kin of the clerk." It can also refer to family origins in any of a number of places with names beginning Pisar-, which would mean "[place] of the scribe." In other words, it could mean "one from Pisary" or "one from Pisarki" and so on.

So it indicates a connection of the family with either a scribe or clerk or a place named for a connection with a scribe or clerk. Only detailed genealogical research into the background of a specific family might clarify which meaning applies in their particular case, and indicate w

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My Grandfather 's Last name was Pyzik. I appreciate any insight you can provide.

Pyzik is pronounced roughly "PIZH-eek," with the vowel in the first syllable as in "ship" or "fizz." Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the noun pyza, "chubby-faced person." So Pyza would have started as a nickname for one with a chubby face, and Pyzik would have developed as a way of referring to his kin; in most cases we'd interpret it as "son of the guy with the chubby face."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 2,149 Polish citizens with this name, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Katowice 221, Krakow 318, Lublin 298, and Tarnow 372. So the name is found all over Poland, but tends to be particularly common in the area from southcentral to southeastern Poland.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I would very much appreciate knowing the meaning and origin,of the name Rybak, and the province that Rybak is most likely from.

I'm afraid there's no way to say what province Rybak comes from, because the name simply means "fisherman," and is found all over Poland. As of 1990 there were 14,194 Polish citizens named Rybak (pronounced roughly "RIB-ock"), living all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area. So a family by that name could come from anywhere in Poland; and the name simply indicates that about the time surnames were becoming established, an ancestor was a fisherman.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Thank you so much ! This is amazingly helpful. I'm sorry to trouble you again, but another name has come up: Smolinski. I'd be ever so grateful to find out anything about this name.

Smolinski in Polish is spelled with an acute accent over the N and is pronounced roughly "smo-LEEN-skee."

This name comes from ultimately from the noun smoła (that it is not plain l, but rather the Polish hard l with a slash or crossbar through it). That noun means "tar, pitch," and Smoliński is adjectival and could be interpreted as meaning "of the one of tar." The same noun in virtually the same form exists in other Slavic languages such as Russian, so we cannot be absolutely certain the name is of Polish origin. This spelling, however, would generally be associated with Poles; Russians, for instance, would be more likely to show up as Smolinsky.

Usually names ending in -iński or -yński turn out to refer to place names ending in -in or -ino or -no or -na. So while this name could mean nothing more than "kin of the tar fellow" -- perhaps referring to an ancestor who worked or dealt with tar professionally, or looked as if he did (i. e., was quite dirty) -- in most cases we would expect this name to mean "one from Smolino" or "one from Smolna" or any of a number of places in Poland and the nearby countries with names beginning Smol-. They in turn would have gotten those names due to some association with tar. So Smoliński would in most cases mean "one from Smolino/Smolna etc." = "one from the place of tar."

Given the variability of vowels, it's even conceivable the name could refer to a family connection with Smolensk, Russia. The names Smoleński and Smoliński would often be used interchangeably, even though in theory they should be distinct and refer to a different set of places with distinguishable, albeit similar, names. But if you search Eastern Europe you will see there are many, many places with names that qualify, Smolen- or Smolin- or Smoln- in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, etc. Go, for instance, to this Website: http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm

Specify a search for SMOL in all the countries of Eastern Europe, and specify "Search using All Towns using this Precise Spelling." Click on "Start the search." Shortly you will have a list of places in Central and Eastern Europe with names beginning Smol-. They aren't all places that could produce the name Smoliński, but many of them are.

In such instances, the only way to determine for sure which place the surname refers to in a given family's case is through detailed research into that family's history. These Smolińskis might have come from here, those from there, and so on. Only detailed research might uncover facts that would make clear which particular place the name refers to in that family's case. Without such details, all we can say for sure is that the name refers to some connection with tar, and most likely to a place with a name formed from that root, a name beginning Smolen- or Smolin- or Smoln-.

As of 1990 there were 13,483 Polish citizens named Smoliński, living all over the country. So it's a moderately common surname among Poles.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My name is Pat Heck and I live in Roscoe Illinois. I have been looking for my Grandfathers parents names with no success at all! This is the spelling that I was given by my Uncle. Sowizdzal I would appreciate any information you could provide.

This is a name that appears in Polish in a bewildering variety of spellings, including Sowiżrał, Sowiźrał, Sowizdrzał, Sowizdżał and Sowiżdżał and so on-- Z with a dot over it, pronounced like "zh" in "Zhivago" or "s" in "measure"; Z with an accent over it, pronounced much the same but somewhat softer and more hissing; and L with a slash through it, pronounced much like English "w." So Sowiżrał is pronounced roughly "so-VEEZH-raw," and Sowiżdżał sounds like "so-VEEZH-jaw."

They all come from the noun sowiżrał or sowiźrał, which is a variant form of the noun more often seen as sowizdrzał ("so-VEEZ-jaw"), which means "scamp, scatterbrain, frivolous-minded trouble-maker"; this probably reflects regional pronunciation tendencies, that is, in some areas they pronounced it one way, in others another way. I know the meaning of the name is not very complimentary, but believe me, by Polish standards it's almost flattering! Many Polish names are downright insulting. I can see this originating as a nickname used almost affectionately, as a mother might call her mischievous son a "scamp" or a "scoundrel." It's not nearly so harsh as some names that can only be translated with four-letter words!

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 254 Poles who spelled the name Sowizdrzał; it's a bit more common in the provinces of Kalisz (58) and Sieradz (63), farther north and west from Tarnow.

There were 174 Polish citizens named Sowiźrał, with an accent over the Z. The largest number by far, 124, lived in the southeastern province of Tarnow, i. e., the same area your grandfather came from. The rest were scattered in small numbers in various provinces, mostly in southern Poland. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

The spelling Sowiżrał was less common, borne by 61 Poles, with no concentration in any one province. The difference between Ż and Ź is so subtle and often ignored that one can regard these as two slightly different forms of the same name.

There were also 28 Poles who spelled it Sowizdżał and 38 who spelled it Sowiżdżał. They were scattered all over, with no particular concentration in any one area.

Names were often spelled phonetically in old records, so you basically have to have your eyes open for any and all of these spellings. The same person might appear in one record as Sowizdżał, and as Sowiźrał in the next. This happens all the time. That's why I mentioned all those different forms -- any of them might show up in your research. And if you haven't had any luck finding one form, it may help to have these others to look for.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I was wondering if you could help me out with the surname, Szymankiewicz.

Szymankiewicz is pronounced roughly "shim-onk-YEAH-veech." The -ewicz part means "son of," and the Szymank- part is from Szymanek or Szymanko, both of which mean "little Simon" or "son of Simon." So this surname means literally either "son of little Simon" or "son of Simon's son." That sounds a little odd to us, but once a name such as Szymanek or Szymanko existed, Poles wouldn't find it odd to add an -ewicz to it, even if that "son of the son of" bit seems a bit redundant. Besides, as I said, Szymanek or Szymanko could have been a nickname, kind of like "little Simon" or "good old Si."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 2,004 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 281, Ciechanow 160, Kalisz 206, Leszno 135, and Poznan 388. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data indicates the name is found all over the Poland, with some concentration in the west central area, and another in the area just northeast of the center of the country. I'm afraid that's about as much as I can say from the available data.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I have just been on your web page and i would like to request some information on the name Tokarski.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 11,175 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one region.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes ultimately from the noun tokarz, "operator of a lathe." It could have developed as meaning simply "kin of the lathe operator," or it could indicate family origin in a place named Tokary or something similar, which in turn surely got its name from some association with lathe operators.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... I was given your name recently as the "expert" in Polish surnames. Would you know if the name Aviza is Polish, Lithuanian, etc.?

I'm pretty sure Aviza can't be regarded as a Polish name -- as of 1990 there were no Polish citizens by that name, and I can find no Polish root that fits. There is a root in the Latin-derived languages, e.g., aviso in Spanish, "notice, advice, announcement," but that seems unlikely to be relevant here. However, I see that there is a word in Lithuanian, aviža (upside down caret over the Z), which means "oat," and that is entirely plausible as the source of a surname. In Lithuanian (and those other languages as well) we often see names based on plants or edible items. In this case, perhaps an ancestor dealt in oats, grew them, loved to eat them, etc. -- there are several ways such a name could get started.

Interestingly, there were in 1990 some 144 Polish citizens named Awiżeń (dot over the Z, accent over the N), with the largest numbers in the provinces of Gorzow (18), Olsztyn (30), and Szczecin (15). A. Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames From the Kingdom of Poland mentions Awizański, saying it derived from the village of Awiżańce near Sejny. I cannot find that village on the map, but in Lithuania there are several villages named Avižieniai and one named Avižonys. Most likely all these names took their origin from the Lithuanian word aviža, presumably because they were somehow associated with the growing and dealing of oats. This may not be directly relevant to your research, since it appears the name you're interested in is simple Aviža, with no suffixes. But I thought I'd mention this other info, just in case it proves interesting.

I have no data on how common a name Aviža is, but I know someone who may be able to provide that info. Dave Zincavage is interested in Lith. names, and has a dictionary with info on them. I suggest you e-mail him to ask what he can add to what I've told you. I'll be very surprised, however, if the word for oat doesn't turn out to be the source of this name.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
 

Do you have any information on either of the name Buchkowski?

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there was no one in Poland named Buchkowski, and that name, while theoretically possible, doesn't look or sound right. I strongly suspect it's been modified under English phonetic influence. In Polish they use cz to write the sound we spell as ch, and I suspect the original spelling was Buczkowski, pronounced roughly "booch-KOFF-skee," and the spelling was modified to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. As of 1990 there were 6,819 Polish citizens named Buczkowski, living all over the country.

This surname refers to the name of a place the family came from, a place named Buczek or Buczki or Buczkow or Buczkowo. There are quite a few places by those names, and with this surname, too, there's no way to know which one it refers to in a given family's case without researching their background in detail.

The good news is, if you have any luck with your research, you may find the specific region in Poland your ancestors came from. At that point you can look for a nearby place with a name beginning Buczk-. If you find one, chances are decent that's the place the surname referred to originally. You might even find records that spell it out and make it clear. But that's the only way to determine for sure which particular places these surnames originally referred to.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Can you please enlighten me on the origin of my surname Buewicz.

The suffix -ewicz means "son of," and appears not only in Polish but also in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, etc. Of course in those other languages it is spelled differently, but it is the same Slavic ending meaning "son of." So the obvious answer is that this name means "son of Bu."

However, I can find no Slavic name Bu. Names exist beginning Bud-, Buj- Bug-, Buk-, etc., but no Bu.

But since Russian may be involved here, let me suggest one possibility. In Russian, of course, this name would be spelled in the Cyrillic alphabet, in which the letter E usually begins with the sound Poles spell as J. In other words, a Polish name Bujewicz would be written in Russian with the Cyrillic letters that look like Буев.

Thus I wonder if the name in question would be spelled BUJEWICZ in Polish, but its Russian form might be mistakenly rendered in the Roman alphabet as BUEWICZ, ignoring the J sound? The root Buj- appears in names often, meaning "rapidly growing, full of energy and strength," often with the added sense of "violent, turbulent, wild."

If my analysis is correct, the name you're asking about probably began as a reference to the son of one who was large and strong, or received a name beginning Buj- in hopes he would be large and strong. Vladimir Dahl's Dictionary of the Great Russian Language mentions a term we'd spell buyevo in the Roman alphabet (more like Буево in Cyrillic) that means "violently, wildly, with great energy." In this instance the Russian and Polish meanings of the root are very similar -- both refer to one bursting with great energy and strength, and often using that energy to cause an uproar.

That appears to me the most likely explanation of the name: that it meant "son of the brawler, son of the wildly energetic one." Perhaps you can determine whether it makes sense or not.

In case the data is any help to you, as of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 84 Polish citizens named Bujewicz. They were scattered all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... we are seeking information about our family name Bujewski. The Bujewski family originates in Pozen, as far as we know.They have been farmers in Bnin and Lodzia, Pozen. We found the first entries in 1808/9 ( Stanislaus Bujewski). On the other hand we found the Bujewski name in the Ucraine (Taras Bujewski, still alive a welknown composer). Although we do not take an information we got from different Polish nationals very serious, we wonder whether there is some truth in it. We as well as American family members were told that Bujewski is a name of royalty. Can that be true? We would appreciate any information about the origin and meaning of our name.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 145 Polish citizens named Bujewski. The majority, 102, lived in the province of Bydgoszcz, in northwestern Poland. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it derives ultimately from the root buj-, as seen in the verb bujeć, "to grow quickly," the adjective bujny, "strong, growing thick and strong," and the noun bujak, "bull, brawler" (i. e., a powerful man who was prone to use his strength in fights." Thus Bujewski could have started as a name meaning something like "of the kin of the strong one."

Very often, however, names in the form X-ewski refer to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago. Bujewski could mean "one from Buje or Bujew or Bujewo." I can't find any places by those names on modern maps, but that's not unusual. The thing is, Polish surnames developed centuries ago, and often came from the name of a field or hill or little settlement, names used only by locals, that would be unlikely to appear on any map or in any gazetteer. So the place this name refers to may now be quite obscure, or may even have disappeared or renamed or absorbed into another community centuries ago. It's also quite possible the place name or surname, or both, have changed somewhat over the centuries. I'm afraid only genealogical research might uncover facts that would clear up exactly what place the surname originally referred to.

It is not unusual to find the same name among Poles and Ukrainians. The languages are similar, and similar names can develop in both. Also, a great many Polish noble families settled on estates in the Ukraine, and thus we often find a particular name appears among descendants in both Poland and Ukraine. Thus it tells us nothing to know that a Ukrainian was named Bujewski. He might or might not have been related to your family; only genealogical research can establish or refute this.

I can find no information on a royal or noble family named Bujewski. My sources do not, however, concentrate on Polish nobility, so it is quite possible there was such a family and I simply don't know about it.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

we are trying to trace our roots. my grandfather came to america in 1907. according to ship manifests, ethnicity was austria, galicy,polish. place of residence was dolnawicz, galicy. his full name was wojciech Burkat age 37 at that time.

I'm afraid someone may have misled you. The information to which I have access is seldom much use in tracing individual persons or families. But here's what I can tell you.

Burkat is pronounced roughly "BOOR-cot," that Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions it in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], saying it appears in records as early as 1431 and is a Polish variation of the German name Burghart, from roots meaning "defend" and "mighty, bold," so that it originally meant something like "bold defender."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 506 Polish citizens named Burkat. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 53, Krakow 277, and Nowy Sacz 39. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. Krakow and Nowy Sacz were in Galicia; I don't believe Katowice ever was. (Galicia was the part of Poland seized by the Austrian Empire during the partitions in the late 18th century; it consisted of what are now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. There's no guarantee the place you're looking for was in the territory now ruled by Poland; it could be in what is now Ukraine.)

I looked in the Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia and found no place named Dolnawicz; I can't be sure, but I suspect the name is wrong. There was a Dolna Wies (literally "lower village") near Myslenice, south of Krakow. At one time it was a separate village, but now it's part of the town of Myslenice, and is called Dolne Przedmiescie ("lower suburb"). This might be worth a look, since in Poland the name Burkat is most common in the Krakow area. So "Dolnawicz" may turn out to be Dolna Wies; I don't know, but I think it's worth a look.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

In Polish Burkot would be pronounced roughly "BURR-kott." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 384 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 88, Katowice 53, Nowy Sacz 58, and Tarnow 82. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name is found all over Poland but is most common in the southcentral to southeastern part of the country.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from one of many forms of the German name Burghard that Poles adapted to their linguistic preferences and used as first names and surnames. Burghard is an old Germanic personal name from the roots burg, "fortress, stronghold," and -hard or -hart, "brave, strong." It would have meant something like "[may he be like] a mighty fortress."

Over the centuries many Germans resettled all over in Poland, and it's not rare to see names of Germanic origin used by Poles. In this case Burghard came to be used by Poles in forms such as Burgart, Burkart, Burkat, and Burkot. As time went on these forms came to be used also as surnames, meaning more or less "kin of Burghard."

Ignaszak would be pronounced roughly "eeg-NOSH-ock." As of 1990 there were 1,353 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 110, Kalisz 295, Konin 161, and Poznan 357. So this name is found all over the country but is most common in west central Poland.

This surname also comes from a first name, Ignacy (= English and Latin Ignatius). Ignaszak would mean "kin of Ignatius, son of Ignatius." So all it really tells us is that at some point an ancestor was named Ignacy.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am working on a project for my high school english class and am looking for any information available on my family name Burzynski. Any information you can supply, I would appreciate greatly. Thank you very much!

In Polish this name is spelled with an accent over the N and is pronounced roughly "boo-ZHIN-skee" (where "zh" is the sound heard in "Zhivago" or "rouge"). As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 9,583 Polish citizens named Burzyński. They lived in large numbers all over the country; there was no one area with which the name was associated to the point that we can say "There's where a Burzyński family came from" without doing detailed genealogical research.

The basic root of this name is seen in the noun burza, "storm, brawl, disturbance," of which Burzyński is an adjectival form. So in some cases the name probably started out meaning "kin of Burza," referring to one who was called that because he was always causing a disturbance or looking for a fight. But in many cases it probably refers to the name of a place, which in turn got its name from an owner or founder named Burza. Thus the name can mean "one from Burzyn." There are at least two places by that name, one in the general area of Łomża in northeastern Poland, another not far from Tarnow in southeastern Poland.

The thing is, Polish surnames developed centuries ago, and often came from the name of a field or hill or little settlement, names used only by locals, that would be unlikely to appear on any map or in any gazetteer. So the place this name refers to may be quite obscure, or may even have disappeared or renamed or absorbed into another community centuries ago. The surname may refer to either of the two Burzyns on modern maps, but it may refer to some other place that no longer shows up on maps because it was renamed or it disappeared long ago.

To summarize, this is a moderately common name found all over Poland, and it comes ultimately from some connection with the root burz- meaning "brawl, disturbance, storm." It could have begun as a name for the kin of one with a stormy temperament, but it also could have started as a reference to a place the family came from, which in turn took its name from that root (probably by way of a fellow who owned or founded it who was called Burza). Only successful genealogical research might enable one to establish the exact social, historical, and linguistic context in which the name came to be associated with a given family. But in general it's fair to say it usually means "kin of the stormy guy" or "one from the stormy guy's place."

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Bicio is my current last name. Bycio was the original spelling in Poland. If you have time, I am interested in hearing anything about my name. Supposedly I am 100% Polish.

In Polish Bycio would be pronounced roughly "BITCH-oh" (I don't mean to be insulting, but "bitch" is the English word that comes closest to the sound of the first syllable of the Polish name). As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 8 Polish citizens named Bycio. They lived in the following provinces: Jelenia Gora 7, Legnica 1.

Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. But I can say that in the July 2000 issue of the Polish-American Journal, the PAJ Answerman suggested one can find individuals or families "by contacting the one office in Poland that has on file the addresses of all people currently living in Poland: Centralne Biuro Adresowe, ul. Kazimierzowska 60, 02-543 Warsaw, POLAND." I have no idea whether this works or not, I've never tried it. But I thought it worth passing on, in case it might help you find some relatives.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it derives from the noun byk, "bull." Thus Bycio would be kind of a nickname, perhaps something like "Bull" in English. Presumably an ancestor was a strong man, perhaps rather bull-headed; that would seem the most likely reason for the development of a name of this sort.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Can you give me some information about the name Cegla. Someone told me that my name is polish and that the name Cegla means brick in Polish?

It's possible this name could develop in other languages besides Polish -- I can't say no. But Cegla definitely is a name used by Poles. In Polish it is spelled with a slash through the L. The Polish letter is pronounced like English W, so by English phonetic values the name Cegła would be pronounced roughly "TSEGG-wah."

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as far back as 1369, and does indeed come from the Polish noun cegła, "brick." That noun came into Polish from German Ziegel, which in turn came from the Latin noun tegula. Presumably it began as a nickname for an ancestor who made bricks, or sold them, or worked with them, or was somehow associated by others with bricks. Eventually people began calling the kin of this ancestor by the name, and it developed into a surname.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 849 Polish citizens named Cegła. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Kalisz 346, Katowice 96, Kielce 89, Poznan 44, Radom 59, and Wroclaw, 49. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data indicates the name is most common in the area southeast to southwest of the center of the country.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I had found your email on the Polishroots website and was wondering if you could give me some insight to my last name. I have been researching my family tree and traced it back to Szczedrzyk Poland, to my 5th grandfather born around 1808. The way he signed his name on his naturalization paper spelt Halupczok,i have also found it spelt Chalupczok. Any info or direction would be of much help.

In Polish the H and CH are pronounced the same, kind of like the guttural German "ch" in "Bach," except not quite so harsh. Thus it is quite normal to see names spelled H or CH, and the variation in spelling in your ancestor's name is not unusual. The standard form would be Chałupczok, using Ł to stand for the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our W. The surname is pronounced roughly "hah-WOOP-chock." The spelling you use now makes sense as an Anglicized or Germanized form of the original Polish name -- which is quite normal, eastern European names have often been extensively Anglicized, sometimes past all recognition. Yours is still, at least, recognizable.

The suffix -czok is a Silesian variation of the standard Polish suffix -czak, and if I'm not mistaken, Szczedrzyk is near Opole, and thus in the region of Silesia. So it is reasonable to assume Chałupczok is the Silesian version of the name that appears in standard Polish as Chałupczak. It means literally "son of the hut," but obviously was meant more along the lines of "son of the one who lived in a hut."

That is the probable meaning of the name, referring to one who dwelt in a chałupa, a rather modest (not to say "ramshackle") cabin or hut. There is also a noun in Polish, chałupnik, that we see quite often, it referred to a fairly poor individual who didn't own any land, just a small hut and -- if he was lucky -- maybe also a garden. I would think in most cases the surname Chałupczak probably referred to the kin of someone in that category, although it certainly might also be used for someone who built huts, was shaped like a hut, etc. The most we can say for sure is that, at the time the name developed, there was some association perceived between an individual or family and huts that made this name seem appropriate to those who knew him/them. All these centuries later it is difficult to say exactly what the association was, but there must have been one and it must have made sense to the people at the time, so we can venture some plausible guesses as to the probable nature of the association. (Usually the obvious answer is correct).

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 431 Polish citizens named Chałupczak, living all over Poland but especially in southcentral and southeastern Poland. There were only 5 named Chałupczok, with an O, however, all living in the province of Katowice (in Silesia). I should explain that as literacy became practically universal among Poles, there also arose a tendency to standardize and normalize names, so that dialect forms and variant spellings are gradually disappearing, as people say "Oh, only hicks use that name," and thus change the name to the version recognized as normal among Poles. So it's quite possible some of those people now going by Chałupczak used to be called Chałupczok -- if they lived in Silesia -- but have since standardized the name.

So in summary, the form of the name is distinctively Silesian -- and it sounds as if you've traced it to its native region -- and means something like "kin of the cottager, kin of the one who lived in a hut, kin of the hut guy." That's about as precise as we can get without the kind of really detailed info genealogical research might eventually produce on the context in which the name first developed.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Now I want to ask you about my mum's surname. It's Sitarski, but it seems to be originally Sitarskij, and it was modified here in Argentina. My grandfather was born at some town at Galicia region when it was part of the Austrian Imperium (I think around 1888). Could you tell me about the origiins of Sitarskij? Is it polish? Is it ukranian?

The spelling with -skij suggests it may be Ukrainian rather than Polish. A few letters may not provide sufficient evidence to justify a conclusion, however. The truth is, it could easily by Polish or Ukrainian, especially since the spelling may have been modified due to the influence of Russian. The Ukrainian form, as spelled in Ukrainian Cyrillic, would be something like Sytarskyi, and the Polish spelling would be Sitarski. Either of these could be rendered in Russian Cyrillic as Sitarskiy (as we'd spell it in English) or Sitarskij (as Poles or Germans would render it). But I think there is just a little more likelihood it is Ukrainian.

The root of the name is sitarz in Polish and sytar in Ukrainian, and means "sieve-maker." Sitarski/Sytarskyj would mean "of the sieve-maker," and probably referred to the kin of one whose occupation was making or selling sieves. In Polish the spelling of the name would, as I said, be Sitarski -- the final -z drops off when the ending is added. In Ukrainian the name is spelled in Cyrillic roughly CNTAPCKNN -- the second letter looks like a backwards N, and the final backwards N has a little curve over it, which is the sound of "y" as in "yacht," but spelled with J by Poles and Germans. In Ukrainian the backwards N is pronounced somewhat like the short I in English "ship," and that's why we often see it rendered as Y in our alphabet, rather than as I.

The confusing thing is that in Russian the backwards N sounds like "ee," not a short i. So Russians and Ukrainians use the same letter for two different sounds. Remember, all official papers in areas ruled by the Russian Empire had to be in Russian during the last few decades of the 19th century. So a Ukrainian name spelled CNTAPCKNN, though pronounced roughly "sit-ar-sky" by Ukrainians, would tend to be spelled the same way by Russians, even though they would pronounce it more like "see-tar-skee." Similarly, Russians would tend to turn Polish Sitarski into CNTAPCKNN (or CNTAPCKIN), pronounced the same way.

The bottom line is, by the time you factor in Russian influence on spelling, it's impossible to say for sure whether Sitarskij represents a phonetic rendering in the Roman alphabet of Polish Sitarski or Ukrainian Sytarskyj. But based on what I've seen in actual documents, I think the presence of that -ij on the end of the name might indicate Ukrainian origin. This is by no means, certain, but that final -J is just a bit less likely to get tacked onto the end of a Polish name, when it is spelled in our alphabet.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 2,293 Polish citizens named Sitarski (none spelled it Sitarskij). The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 252, Kielce 449, Lublin 179, and Tarnobrzeg 215. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name is found all over Poland, but with some concentration in the southeastern regions, which were, of course, formerly part of the Austrian Empire's province of Galicia, along with what is now western Ukraine. I have no data on frequency and distribution for Ukraine, unfortunately.

To summarize, the name means "kin of the sieve-maker," and could be Polish or Ukrainian -- but if I had to make a guess, I'd say Ukrainian is a little more likely. In all honesty, however, the Poles and Ukrainians mixed so much, and there are so many similarities of words and names in their languages, that the difference may be academic. The first name may tell us more -- some names were used far more by Ukranians than Poles, and often the first name makes clear what the surname leaves in doubt.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My name is ... Strzelczyk and I am looking for information on the name Strzelczyk. Thank-you in advance for any formation you can provide me.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 7,984 Polish citizens named Strzelczyk. The name was common all over the country; there's no one area with which it is particularly associated. It's pronounced roughly "S'CHELL-chick."

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. It comes from the basic root seen in the noun strzelec, "shooter, marksman." The term strzelczyk means "young shooter, one being trained to shoot," and as a surname it might also just mean "son of the marksman." Originally terms beginning strzel- referred to marksmen using bows and arrows, but as guns became more common the term expanded to mean "expert shot with a gun" as well. I think "son of the marksman" or "youth being trained as a marksman" would be the most likely interpretations of what the name originally meant, before it came into use as a surname.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am looking for the meaning of Duda. This was my grandmother's maiden name and she was born in Poland and came to this country in 1902.

In Polish DUDA is pronounced roughly "DOO-dah." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland, available online), there were 38,290 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, so that a family by this name could come from anywhere.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1392 and comes from the noun duda, which means "bagpipes," also "a bad musician" (i. e., one who plays the pipes but isn't very good at it). The name could have begun as a nickname for an ancestor who played the bagpipes, or for one who was a bad musician. It could also have been used in a transferred sense, with the meaning "one who goes around making a lot of pointless noise." There's no way to tell exactly how this name came to be associated with an individual family, unless detailed research into that family's history turns up some old document that sheds light on the matter. Absent such info, all we can say is that the name surely began as a nickname for one who played the pipes (probably not too well), or for one who made a lot of needless noise. At some point the name came to be applied to that person's descendants, and eventually "stuck" as a surname.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My last name is Sulewski and i would like to find out where it come from and history behind it.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 2,245 Polish citizens named Sulewski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 154, Białystok 109, Gdansk 558, Łomża 561, and Suwałki 274. Thus the name is found all over Poland but is most common in the northcentral to northeastern part of the country. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

According to Polish experts, Sulewski, pronounced roughly "soo-LEFF-skee," simply refers to the name of a place where a given family lived at some point centuries ago. It would mean "one from Sulew or Sulewo" or some similar place name; it could also refer to places named Sulejow or Sulejewo. There are a number of places by these names, and there's no way to know which one the surname refers to in a given family's case, except through detailed genealogical research that establishes the exact social, geographic, linguistic, and historical context in which the name came to be associated with that particular family. That is beyond the scope of what I can do.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am looking for any family - distant or close of my father who died three years ago. Pls can you give me a little information about our surname Swiatopelk - Mirski

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 13 Polish citizens named ŚWIATOPEŁK-MIRSKI. The name is pronounced roughly "shvyah-TOPE-ewk MEER-skee" (the last syllable of the first name sounds like "elk" but with a W sound instead of an L). These 13 Poles lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 1, Lodz 3, Pila 4, Szczecin 4, Wroclaw 1. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

Światopełk is a name of ancient Slavic origin, spelled many different ways, including Russified Svyatopelk, Svyatopulk, Svyatopluk, etc. It comes from ancient Slavic terms meaning "mighty, powerful" (in modern Slavic languages that root has come to mean "holy, sacred," but back centuries ago it meant "mighty, powerful") and "regiment, division of the army." The ancient Slavs were very warlike, and often gave their children names of good omen meant to make them glorious in battle. This one presumably was meant to help a child grow up to be a valued member of the division of fighters in which he fought.

Mirski would generally come from the name of a place beginning Mir- or Mier-. There are several places it could refer to, and without detailed info on a specific family there is no way to know which one is relevant in their particular case. With any luck your research may unearth facts that will help you determine exactly which place the name refers to in your family's case.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

[Referring to data on Świtała online:]

But I have some questions about that info: What says the number 4,753? Is that the number of families, the number of persons or the number of entries in the telephone directory?

It means that as of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 4,753 Polish citizens named Switala. This data was compiled from a Polish government agency database, not from telephone directories. Data was incomplete for some provinces of Poland, but the compilation drew on data for approximately 94% of the population as of 1990. So the data is not perfectly accurate, but it is better than what we had before the Slownik was published (namely, nothing).

Do you know if the name is concentrated in a specific region of Poland or don't you know anything about the distribution of the name?

There was not enough room in my book to give details on the distribution of any name; I would have liked to, but the book was already over 600 pages and to include such data would have made the book so large it could not have been printed and sold for a reasonable price. Also, with the majority of Polish names, the distribution data is useless; the majority of names are too widespread to offer any help whatever in tracing a particular name. Every day people write me in the hope that I can tell them "Your surname proves your family came from one and only one place, namely X, and therefore you don't have to waste time researching, that's where the family came from." Every day I have to disappoint them. I estimate fewer than 5% of Polish names offer any useful clue whatsoever as to where a family by that name originated.

Looking in the Slownik, I find that the largest numbers of Switala's lived in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 533; Czestochowa 693; Kalisz 239; Katowice 875; Leszno 205; Opole 268; Poznan 354; Zielona Gora 224. So the name is most common in southcentral and western Poland; more than that I cannot say.

There are also several forms of writing in Germany (where I am from) of that name, such as Switala, Switalla, Schwitala, Schwitalla, Schwittalla... As I am just starting with genealogy and collecting information about these names I don't know if all these families are from places which now belong to Poland. So if you can send me additional information it would be great.

Those are all simply spelling variations, attempts to represent the name phonetically. In Polish the first letter, the S, has an accent over it which gives it a sound similar to German SCH (although Polish SZ sounds more like SCH, the Polish accented S has a soft, hissing sound perceptibly different from SZ or German SCH). In that name the L is not the standard L but rather an L with a slash through it, which sounds like the English letter W. Even in Polish this name has been spelled various ways, including Switala, Switalla, etc.

In records it is quite common to see names spelled inconsistently, even without complications due to the influence of different languages. Only happened in the last century or so have people begun to emphasize spelling a name the same way consistently, and only during that time that literacy has become so widespread that it became possible to standardize spellings. Whether one studies American records or English or French or German, one need only go back a few decades and one begins to see names spelled many different ways. So all those forms you cite are simply variations in spelling of Świtała, which is the standard Polish spelling of the name.

By the way, I did lookups in several German surname books, almost all tried to derive Switala from names like Schwindt, Schwind. But maybe they did not really think about the fact where the name comes from...

I've found as a rule it is best to consult Polish authorities on Polish names, Germans on German names, Lithuanians on Lithuanian names, etc. It is too easy to make a mistake about name origins if one does not possess a truly deep, comprehensive knowledge of a language, its history, and its ways of forming names.

This name Świtała comes from a Slavic root meaning "light, dawn, daybreak," which appears in Russian svet, Ukrainian svit, Polish świt, etc. In Polish names the suffix -ała added to a root X usually means "one always doing X, one always exhibiting the quality or characteristic of X." So Switala meant literally "one associated with dawn, light; one always shining; one who typifies brightness." There is no connection with any German word, except perhaps a remote one with words coming from the same original Indo-European root.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My grandparents immigrated to America around 1880-1893. I know all of the people in this country with the name "Stuligross".

Our name was legally revised from "Stuligrosz" to "Stuligross" in Detroit, Michigan around 1935-1945.

My Mother's Maiden name was "Taube", which is fairly common, and difficult to trace.

Both of my parents referred to themselves as "Kashubs", which I understand is the area bordering Germany and Poland, with control of the area frequently changing from one to the other.

Do you have any suggestions?

In Polish the original form of the name was surely Stuligrosz, which would be pronounced roughly "stoo-LEE-grosh." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 62 Polish citizens named Stuligrosz. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz 17, and Poznan 14. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

That distribution is not typical of Kashub surnames, which are usually concentrated in the northcentral to northwestern provinces of Bydgoszcz, Gdansk, Pila, and Slupsk. That does not mean, however, that your parents were wrong. People did move around, and it's not at all strange that some folks of Kashub descent might end up in Poznan province, farther south of the ancestral regions of the Kashubs. It only means that from my sources I can't really confirm Kashub origin -- but I see no reason to dispute it, either.

It's pretty clear this name comes from a combination of the root in the verb stulić, "to squeeze together," and the noun grosz, "penny, small coin." In other words, this almost certainly started as a kind of nickname meaning much the same as "Pinchpenny" in English. Without verification by scholars or researchers who have studied the name's origin in detail, I can't be absolutely certain that's correct. But it's a good educated guess, and I feel pretty confident the name did, indeed, begin as a nickname meaning "one who squeezes his pennies together," i. e., one who was pretty tight with his money. Considering how parsimonious most Poles and Kashubs are, you'd have to be pretty darn tight with money to qualify for this name!

Taube comes from the German word for "dove," and I imagine it would be fairly hard to research because the name offers little in the way of insights or leads (which, frankly, is true of the vast majority of surnames). Since Germany long ruled much of western and northern Poland, we often see German names in those areas; in fact Germans immigrated to Poland in large numbers over the years, so we find German names all over Poland. As of 1990 there were 324 Polish citizens named Taube, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Gdansk, 139, and Pila, 42. So while it does not appear to be associated exclusively with Kashubs, that distribution suggests it probably is most often Kashubian, at least when it appears in Poland.

I have a couple of recommendations for you. With your Detroit roots you may benefit from joining the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan, if you haven't already. It's a good group, which has developed some pretty impressive resources for helping researchers with roots in Michigan. They've been undergoing some problems lately, as key members have had to cut back on their activity due to illness and similar difficulties. But I feel sure the Society will endure and continue to offer its members a lot of assistance. If you want more info, visit their Website at:

http://www.pgsm.org

The Kashubs, in Polish Kaszubi, are a Slavic people closely related to the Poles, but they have their own customs and language (very similar to Polish in many respects). They were pressured by the German rulers of that region to drop their culture and language and associate themselves with Germans, but resisted to a considerable degree. If you'd like to know more about them, these Websites have some information:

http://www.pgsa.org/kashnam2.htm

http://www.pgsa.org/kashname.htm

http://www.pgsa.org/kashub.htm

http://feefhs.org/kana/frg-kana.html

http://www.Kashuba.Org/

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

could you please help me with my surname, I am trying to find the roots of Wojtkowicz family.

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "voit-KO-veech." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and can be searched here), there were 103 Polish citizens by that name. They were scattered in small numbers all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area.

The suffix -owicz means "son of," so Wojtkowicz means "son of Wojtek or Wojtko," something like that. The first part of the name could come from two sources: it can be a nickname for a person named Wojciech, meaning basically "son of Wojciech"; or it can come from the term wójt, an official who was a sort of village headman. So the name means either "Wojciech's son" or "the wójt's son." I think it's especially likely to come from the first name, however, because Wojtek is a common and popular Polish nickname or affectionate short form of Wojciech.

There is no linguistic equivalent of that name in English -- it comes from ancient Slavic roots meaning literally "war-joy," probably given as a name by parents hoping their child would grow up to take joy in battle and thus be a fierce and successful fighter. But due to a historical accident, the Slavic name Wojciech (or in Czech Vojtech) has long been closely associated with the Germanic first name Albrecht or Adalbert or Albert. So a Pole bearing the first name Wojciech usually came to be known as Alebrt in English-speaking countries. That's probably not directly relevant to the discussion of this surname, but it may be a useful fact worth knowing if you dig into the family history. People trying to learn something about the name Wojciech are often puzzled to find it treated as if it were the same as Albert, when it's obviously not! But centuries ago the Slavic saint Wojciech took the name Albert at confirmation in honor of his sponsor, the Bishop of Magdeburg, Albert; and since then the two names have been connected culturally, even though linguistically they are completely unrelated.

I should add that in Polish you often have two forms of the same basic surname, differing only in ending, -owicz or -ewicz. So it's not surprising that the surname Wojtkiewicz also exists, pronounced roughly "voit-K-YEAH-veech." As of 1990 there were some 2,624 Polish citizens by that name, so it tends to be the more common form. Wojtkowicz and Wojtkiewicz mean exactly the same thing; the only difference is that in some areas there's a tendency to add -owicz rather than -ewicz to certain name forms. For some reason the form of this particular name with -ewicz is more common than the one with -owicz. Hard to say why, however; sometimes there is no readily apparent rhyme or reason to surname usage and popularity.

I mention all this only because it is possible you will see both forms in family records. To Poles Wojtkiewicz and Wojtkowicz are obviously different forms of the same name, and they didn't also worry too much about consistency of name forms in old records. So if you do some research into your family history, you might want to keep an eye out for Wojtkiewicz as well.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

...What might be the meaning of the name Wojtowicz? I am grateful for any knowledge you might contribute.

The suffix -owicz means son of, so the key is what wojt- means. There are two possibilities. In most cases it would come from the root wójt, which is a term for a kind of village official or headman, one who was in charge of a village or group of villages. The exact duties varied in different times and places, but I suppose you could say he was the "go to guy" in rural communities, one who took care of implementing local rules and policies. So the surname was probably applied originally to the sons or kin of the local wójt.

The root can also come from the first name Wojciech (pronounced roughly VOJ- chek) which is usually rendered as "Albert" in English because the names were historically linked. Thus Wojtowicz could also mean son of Wojciech/Albert. I would think this particular surname would more often refer to the official, but we can't rule that in some instances it might refer to the first name.

This is a very common name in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 5,319 Polish citizens named Wojtowicz, spread all over the country.

Copyright © 1998 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
 

The encoding of your message mangled the 7th letter, but I assume the name is Stuliglowa, pronounced roughly "stoo-lee-G'WOE-vah." I will proceed on that assumption, because I can find no other name in Polish that fits the pattern STULIG_OWA.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland, available online), there were 63 Polish citizens by this name. They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 5, Czestochowa 4, Katowice 3, Koszalin 8, Przemysl 1, Radom 1, Rzeszow 14, Szczecin 24, Tarnow 3. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

Of course I have no way of knowing whether any of these people would be related to you. Only research into the family history could establish that; it would involve trying to trace the family back in records, generation by generation -- which may be quite difficult in your case. But without detailed knowledge of the family history, the most one can do is analyze what a name means literally and then speculate on how it was probably understood when it first developed.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. Obviously the -glowa part comes from the noun glowa, "head." Rymut says the Stuli- part comes from the verb stulic, "press together, squeeze together, close up." So the name probably began as a nickname meaning something like "close your head" or "put your heads together." I don't speak colloquial Polish, so I'm not certain how Poles would understand this name. I suspect it may have been another way of saying "Shut your mouth!" In other words, "Press your head together" makes sense only if you imagine it to mean pressing one's lips together to close the mouth. I imagine this began as a nickname for an ancestor who had a habit of using this phrase, or perhaps one whom people somehow associated with this action.

That is how I interpret it, but I don't have the time or resources to do more detailed research on names; all I can give is "quick and dirty" analysis. If you would like to get an opinion from the real experts and don't mind spending about $20, you can write the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute in Krakow. The staff consists of Polish scholars specializing in name origins, with access to large collections of material on the subject; there is surely no one else in the world better qualified to answer questions on Polish names. They can correspond in English, and the charge for researching a single name is seldom more than $20-30. You write to them with your request, and the individual who does the research will reply, and will tell you how much he/she is charging and how best to send payment. It is usually quite painless, and most people I hear from are very satisfied with the results; but the staff has been a bit slow lately in answering letters -- they have lots of other work to do, after all -- so patience is advisable.

If you do hear from them and they give you a really good reply, I'd love to hear what they say. I will be revising my book on Polish surnames in the near future, and would love to be able to repeat this information, for the benefit of any other Stuliglowas who may read it.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am writing because I would like to know more about "Szarwark". Where the word came from, what it means to Polish people, and how someone would get that as a family name. Any help that you can provide me will be very much appreciated.

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "SHAR-vark." In both cases the -ar- would rhyme with "car" or "far." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% ofthe population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 229 Polish citizensnamed SZARWARK. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces:Bydgoszcz 50, Pila 30, Poznan 31, and Tarnow 61. Unfortunately I don't haveaccess to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tellyou how to find that info.

This data indicates the name is found all over Poland, with some concentration in the areas near the northwestern town of Bydgoszcz and the southeastern town of Tarnow.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], saying it comes from the common noun szarwark. That term referred to compulsory labor service peasants performed for their lords. Peasants were required to do various kinds of labor service for the use of the land their lord let them farm, and it was not unusual for those labor obligations to include a day or two of szarwark a week. I suppose peasants who did not inherit land might also do szarwark for a living. The term in Polish comes from German Scharwerk, meaning "compulsory labor," and could theoretically refer to any of the various kinds of labor services peasants were required to do by their lords. But over time this particular term came to be associated most of all with road maintainance work, and the surname suggests you had an ancestor who did this work.

I should add that it's also possible in a given case the surname might refer to the name of a place where an ancestor came from. There's a Szarwark in the general area of Tarnow; so if a given Szarwark family came from that area, it's possible the name might have started in their case as a way of saying "one from Szarwark." Only genealogical research might clarify for sure how this surname came to be associated with your family, by establishing where they came from and thus indicating whether the name more likely referred to the labor service or to the village name (which, in turn, must have come from that term for labor service).

That's about all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

my name is tony karasiewicz, can you help me ? what does it mean ? karasiewicz = karaskiewicz ?

The ending -ewicz means "son of," so KARASIEWICZ means "son of Karas." That name comes from the noun karas, "crucian carp" (a kind of fish). Most likely Karas was a nickname for an ancestor one who liked to fish for carp, or sell them, or eat them, or somehow reminded people of a carp.

So the name means essentially the same as KARASKIEWICZ, except the added -k- in that name gives the meaning of "little." Karasiewicz is "son of the carp," and Karaskiewicz is "son of the little carp." That's the only difference.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 2,600 Polish citizens named Karasiewicz. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 304, Poznan 266, Płock 261, Elblag 161, and Bydgoszcz 110. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data indicates the name is found all over Poland, with no real concentration in any one area. It's particularly common in the areas near the cities mentioned, Warsaw, Poznan, Płock, Elblag, and Bydgoszcz. But this really tells us nothing about where a specific Karasiewicz family came from. Only research into the history of that family might shed light on that question.

That's about all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I would like to know if my Polish last name Parada is Jewish.

It could be, but it is not necessarily Jewish. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 974 Polish citizens by that name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 50, Chelm 128, Katowice 70, Kielce 141, Lublin 63. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name is found all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area.

The point is, after the Holocaust, there are no exclusively Jewish surnames borne by more than a few dozen people, at most. If a name is borne by more than 900 people in modern Poland, it's certain the vast majority are Christians. If it were a Jewish name, you might find 9 or 90 people still living with that name in Poland today -- but not 900!

In Polish PARADA is pronounced roughly "pah-RAH-dah" -- or much the same way as if it were a Spanish name. Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the noun parada, "show, exhibition, ceremony, pomp" -- in other words from the same origin as our word "parade." It is thought to have come from Old French parade, "exhibition," from parer, "to embellish," from Latin parare, to "prepare."

There is no reason a specific Jewish family couldn't have gone by this name. It's one of the many that Christians or Jews could bear -- there's no particular reason it has to be associated with one religion or another. So you can't tell the religion from the name. You'd have to research the family history to find information establishing that. (And, of course, PARADA doesn't have to be Polish; this particular name can exist in many different languages. But I assume you have reason to believe it is Polish in your case.)

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My maiden name is Adams. I am 3rd generation born in the United States. My great grandfather Joseph Adams, moved his wife and two kids from Poland to Minnesota and there had 4 more children. When he moved here, he realized that his last name might be too hard for his children to say and spell, so he shortened it. There are two of the 6 children still alive and neither one of them know how to spell the last name my great grandfather shortened. I was hoping you might be able to help. This is how we think it might be spelled based off of how we know it to be said. "Adamachevski"

The most likely form is Adamczewski, which would be pronounced roughly "ah-dahm-CHEFF-skee." According to Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut's book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], that name generally means "one from Adamczewice," a village now called Adamki in Blaszki district of Lodz province. It is also possible it might refer in some cases to Adamczowice, in Klimontow district of Swietokrzyskie province. Surnames ending in -ewski can come from place names with -ew- or -ow-, as that vowel can change very easily, especially when further suffixes are added.

So this surname refers to the name of a place with which the family was connected at some point centuries ago. As often happens, there's more than one place this surname could refer to. The only way to find out which one your particular Adamczewskis came from is through detailed research into the family history. Such research might establish whether the family came from near Lodz, in which case the connection with Adamki is more likely, or from the Swietokrzyskie area, in which case Adamczowice is the more likely connection. There might even be some other place I haven't found -- because the Adamczew- or Adamczow- part basically means "[places] of little Adam," and thus could potentially refer to any village or settlement owned or founded by an Adam.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 5,955 Polish citizens named Adamczewski. They lived all over the country, with particularly large numbers in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 312, Konin 411, Lodz 1,177, and Poznan 467. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

That's what I consider the best match with the name you mentioned. If you'd like to see other possibilities and evaluate them for yourself, go to this site:

http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html  

In the box type ADAM*WSKI and press . That will bring up all surnames borne by Polish citizens as of 1990 that begin with Adam- and end with -wski, with any combination of letters in between. That should allow you to see the most likely matches and check if any of the others make more sense.

If you need help understanding the data and what the abbreviations mean, I wrote an article on the subject in the latest issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am looking for information on only 1 name. Dziegiel is how it was written on the baptismal records held in Tarnow. My great-grandfather was born in Iwkowa, immigrated in 1903 and changed our name to Gengle in 1920.

In Polish this name is usually spelled Dzięgiel -- using the Polish nasal vowel written as an E with a tail under it and pronounced much like "en." Since that nasal E sounds a lot like "en," and since spelling of surnames has always been inconsistent, it is not unusual to see the name spelled Dziengiel sometimes, even in Poland. Either spelling, Dzięgiel or Dziengiel, is pronounced roughly "JENG-yell."

I should add that in English-speaking countries this name Dzięgiel has often been spelled phonetically as Jingle. If you hear a Pole say it, it does sound quite a bit like our word "jingle." So don't be too surprised if you find relatives who spell it something like Jingle. But that would happen only in English-speaking countries, never in Poland.

Gengle is obviously a slightly different phonetic spelling. Pronounce the Polish word and it's easy to see why an immigrant might say, "Well, these Americans can't seem to spell or pronounce Dzięgiel right, so I'll spell it a way they can handle." Or sometimes they pronounced their names and an official wrote it down the way it sounded to him. That's how these alternate spellings got started.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now available online as a searchable database), there were 1,565 Polish citizens named Dzięgiel. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 119, Kraków 306, and Tarnów 305. The name is found all over Poland, but is most common in the southcentral to southeastern part of the country. Your ancestors come from the area where it is most common, therefore. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

If you'd like to see the various spellings of this name still found in Poland (though the variants are quite rare), go to http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html and type in DZI*GIEL in the box, then hit . The list that comes up shows all names beginning DZI-, followed by any combination of letters, followed by -GIEL and any endings. It's an interesting list. If you need help reading the data, I wrote an article on the subject in the latest issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1570 and comes from the noun dzięgiel, the name of a plant in the parsley family, which is called "angelica" in English.

This name suggests an ancestor was somehow connected with that plant. Perhaps he lived in an area where it was very common, or he/she liked to eat it or use it in cooking, or smelled like it, or wore a bouquet of it -- there must have been some kind of connection that was obvious to people at the time, or the name would never have "stuck." But centuries later it can be difficult to figure out exactly what the connection was. We just know there must have been some reason why it made sense to nickname a guy after this plant.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Would you please give me the meaning of my surname Ciesielski. How long has this name existed in Poland and are there still Ciesielski's in Poland as there are many here in Michigan U.S.A

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "cheh-SHELL-skee." It's a fairly common name in Poland. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 24,422 Polish citizens named Ciesielski. They lived all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1393. It comes from the noun cieśla, "carpenter," or from place names derived from that noun, especially Cieśle, of which there are a number in Poland. So the name can be interpreted either "of the carpenter's kin" or "one from Cieśle," which in turn got that name because of a connection with carpenters.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My name is ... Dziengelewski, and I have a great deal of curiosity about the origins of my name. I am the absolute last person of my known family, so I have no relatives to ask.

In Polish this name is usually spelled Dzięgielewski -- using the Polish nasal vowel written as an E with a tail under it and pronounced much like "en." Since that nasal E sounds a lot like "en," and since spelling of surnames has always been inconsistent, it is not unusual to see the name spelled Dziengielewski sometimes, even in Poland. Either spelling, Dzięgielewski or Dziengielewski, is pronounced roughly "jeng-yell-EFF-skee."

(Polish spelling rules say -ge- is wrong, it must always be -gie-, so that's why I'm spelling the name that way. But even in Poland you sometimes see Dziengelewski and Dzięgelewski. These days, however, it's almost always spelled with the I because most of the population is literate and has learned the rules of "correct" spelling.)

I should add that in this country the names beginning Dzięgiel- have often been spelled phonetically as Jingle-. So don't be too surprised if you find relatives who spell it something like Jinglewski. But that would happen only in English-speaking countries, never in Poland.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now available online as a searchable database), there were 4,099 Polish citizens named Dzięgielewski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 441, Białystok 219, Lodz 300, Płock 455, Wloclawek 165. The name is found all over Poland, but is more common in the central part of the country. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

If you'd like to see the various spellings of this name still found in Poland (though the variants are quite rare), go to http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html and type in DZI*GIELEWSKI in the box, then hit . The list that comes up shows all names beginning Dzi- and ending in -gielewski, whatever letters come between. It's an interesting list. If you need help reading the data, I wrote an article on the subject in the latest issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots.

Names in the form X-ewski usually refer to the name of a place with which the family was connected at one time; if they were noble, they owned it, and if not, they lived and worked there. The place name would begin with whatever the X is, so that in this case the surname would mean "one from Dzięgielewo or Dzięgiele" or some similar name. Unfortunately there are quite a few places in Poland and the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with names this surname could refer to. Without further details on a specific family's history there's no way to know which one is relevant.

This is often the case with Polish surnames. Many refer to the name of a place the family came from, but there are many places with names that fit. It's pointless saying "I'm Dzięgielewski, where is my family from?" You have to do the research that indicates they came from a specific area, and at that point it may become possible to hook them up with a place nearby with a name beginning Dzięgiel-.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Been doing some research on family - not sure if Gorniak is Polish - the website you reference only list 54 or so with that name in Poland - of course, I can't read Polish, so I am assuming that's what it was telling me. Is that website available in English?? Appreciate it!!

No, it's not available in English. If you need help using it, I wrote an article on the subject in the latest issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots.

The name Górniak is Polish, spelled with an accent over the O, pronounced roughly "GOORN-yock." As of 1990 there were 8,205 Polish citizens by that name (the 54 you found were with plain O, which was probably a misspelling -- the name would usually be spelled with the accented Ó). The Górniaks lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw, 751; Czestochowa, 555; Katowice, 556; Konin 477; Lublin, 542; and Wroclaw, 454. This just tells us the name is common all over the country, so one cannot tell from the name what part of Poland a given Górniak might have come from.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the noun górniak, a dialect term that can mean "mountain men" or "miner." The root górn- means "of the mountain," but names beginning with that root often refer to mines. So a Górniak ancestor was probably either a miner or a person who lived in the hills or mountains.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Our family names are Gorzalkowski, Borkowski and Korzenewski [Borkowski and Korzeniewski are dealt with in separate notes.]

Gorzalkowski in Polish is spelled with a slash through the L, which means it is pronounced like our W. Gorzałkowski is pronounced roughly "go-zhaw-KOFF-skee."

Surnames in the form X-owski mean literally "of the X's _," where the blank is to be filled in with something so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out -- usually "kin" or "place." So in some cases X-owski can mean "kin of [the] X." But most often it refers to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago, a place name beginning with the X part, which may have various suffixes that were detached before the -owski was added. If the family was noble, they owned an estate there; if not, they lived and worked there. So while X-owski can just mean "kin of X," it generally means "one from the place of X." There are, however, exceptions.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions Gorzałkowski in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], Vol. 1, Institut Jezyka Polskiego PAN, Kraków 1999, ISBN 83-87623-18-0. It comes from the noun gorzałka, "booze, hard liquor, vodka." So this surname could mean "of the kin of the liquor guys," or it could mean "from the place of liquor."

I cannot find any place in Poland with a name such as Gorzałki or Gorzałkowo, however; so I suspect this particular name probably indicates that the family was involved in distilling hard liquor -- "of the kin of the vodka guys," rather than "of the place of vodka." It suggests ancestors were related to people who distilled hard liquor, especially vodka.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 48 Polish citizens named Gorzałkowski. They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 11, Jelenia Gora 4, Opole 5, Pila 1, Piotrkow 19, Poznan 2, Szczecin 5, and Wloclawek 1. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

If you wish to look at the data for yourself, it is at this site:

http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html

If you need help using it, I wrote an article on the subject in the latest issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots.

This data indicates that the name is scattered in small numbers all over the country. You can't look at the name and say, "Oh, the Gorzałkowskis came from this area right here." They could have come from anywhere. Incidentally, that's how it is with most Polish surnames; very few point you to a specific place of family origin. Even if the name refers to a place, there's usually more than one place with a name that fits. The only way to determine exactly where a family came from is to trace their history as far back as possible, in hopes of uncovering info that sheds light on the matter. The surname, by itself, usually won't tell you.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

In the subject field is my last name [Grzenda]. My relatives have always believed it meant something akin to farmer. A recent immigrant, however, stated a grzenda is the ramp leading to and from a hen house. Do you know the correct meaning?

Grzenda is a variation of the name Poles spell Grzęda, using the Polish nasal vowel written as an E with a tail under it and pronounced usually like "en." The name can be spelled Grzenda as well as Grzęda because that's what it sounds like -- roughly like "G'ZHEN-dah."

In Poland these days the spelling Grzęda is much more common; as of 1990 there were 2,509 Poles by that name, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Warsaw 375, Kalisz 360, Kielce 234, and Lublin 259. There were only 299 who spelled it Grzenda, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (97) and Suwałki (49).

Surnames originated centuries ago, and the modern meanings of the words they came from are not necessarily relevant. Many words mean the same thing now that they meant centuries ago; but you can never assume the modern meaning applies until you've looked into the matter a little more closely.

The name Grzęda/Grzenda is mentioned in the book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles] by Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut. He says it appears in records as early as 1439, and come an archaic noun grzęda, "bed (as for flowers); a bar for hanging something on (compare a chicken's roost); a patch for chickens." Presumably it started as a nickname, perhaps for one who had and was always tending a flower-bed, or one somehow associated with a bar or lever, or one always working in the area where chickens were kept (the diminutive noun grządka can mean "hen-house").

People are sometimes puzzled by names that can have several meanings, but if you think about it, English does the same thing. Was the ancestor of a family named Woods known for working with lumber, or did he live near woods, or was this a nickname that referred to his wooden personality, or what? Many words have several meanings, and thus names coming from them can have several meanings.

So there's no way to say what the "correct" meaning was. A Grzenda could have been associated with a flower bed, the area where chickens were kept, or a rod for hanging things on (perhaps because he was long and thin). The only way one might be able to say more is by tracing a specific family back in the records as far as possible. Sometimes that will uncover documents that shed light on exactly how and why a specific name came to be associated with a specific family. Of course, I cannot do that kind of research; but perhaps you can. If so, you will become far more of an expert on what Grzenda means (at least for your family) than I can ever hope to be.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am searching for any information on my late mother's maiden name Her name was Kapral and she came from Katowice.

Kapral is pronounced in Polish much as one might expect: roughly "KAH-prall," with the vowel in both syllables much like the "a" in "father."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 967 Polish citizens named Kapral. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Czestochowa 163, Katowice 149, Kielce 91, and Legnica 86. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data indicates that the name is found all over the country but is most common in southcentral Poland, especially near the towns of Czestochowa and Katowice. So your mother came from the area where this name appears most often.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says the name comes from the noun kapral, which is Polish for "corporal." The word is thought to have come into Polish from Italian caporale, which came -- depending on which expert you check -- either from Latin caput, "head," or from Latin corporalis, "leader, head man," which is, of course, the source of the English word "corporal." Presumably it began as a nickname for an ancestor who was a corporal in the military at some point.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Our family names are Gorzalkowski, Borkowski and Korzenewski [Gorzalkowski and Borkowski are dealt with in separate notes]

Korzeniewski is pronounced roughly "ko-zhen-YEFF-skee." As of 1990 there were 5,638 Polish citizens by this name, as well as another 6,553 who bore the similar name Korzeniowski. These are essentially the same name, except in some areas they preferred the ending -ewski, in others -owski. Both names are common all over the country, but Korzeniewski is more common in the north, Korzeniowski in the south.

Names in the form X-ewski usually mean "one from X." In his book on Polish surnames Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles] Kazimierz Rymut says Korzeniewski would mean "one from Korzeniew or Korzeniów," and again, there are quite a few places with names that fit. They come from the noun korzeń, "root," so that you could interpret the surname as "one from the place of roots." But basically, it just means "one from Korzeniew, Korzeniewo, Korzeniów, etc." Only research into the family history might establish which of those places that particular family came from.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am just interested in what the name Mazur means for my child's project at school.

Mazur (pronounced roughly "MAH-zoor") is a very old and common Polish surname. Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions it in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], saying that it appears in records as far back as 1425 and comes from the noun Mazur, which means "one from Mazovia" (also sometimes spelled "Masovia"). This region, which Poles call "Mazowsze," is in northeastern Poland. Mazur is especially likely to refer to someone from Masuria (in Polish Mazury), which is a subdivision of northern Mazovia. Strictly speaking, we'd expect Mazur to mean "one from Masuria," in the far northeastern corner of Poland. But the noun Mazur was originally a kind of nickname for one from Mazovia in general, and only later did it come to be associated with the specific area now called Masuria.

This name is not a whole lot of help to family researchers because it's too common. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 59,069 Polish citizens named Mazur, and these days they have spread all over the country. So even though the name indicates origin centuries ago in northeastern Poland, for some time now Mazurs have lived all over Poland.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I am interested in learning more about my father's surname: Chetkiewicz as I am trying to piece together a family tree for his family.

In Polish this name would usually be spelled with the first E being the nasal vowel written as an E with a tail under it. This vowel is usually pronounced somewhat like "en," so that Chętkiewicz sounds roughly like "hent-K'YEAH-veech." The initial CH is not quite the H sound of English, it's closer to the guttural "ch" in German "Bach." But that phonetic pronunciation I indicated is pretty close.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. The suffix -ewicz means "son of," so we would figure this name started out meaning "son of Chętko/Chętki/Chętka." Any of those names would produce Chętkiewicz once the ending was added, so we can't tell which one is relevant in a given instance.

These names all come from the root seen in the old term chętki, which in modern Polish is chętny, "willing" (especially in the sense "ready, willing, and able"). The same basic root appears in the noun chętka, "wish, caprice, whim," and in the noun chęć, "wish, desire." So this surname indicates that an ancestor was the son of one named Chętka or Chętki or Chętko, who presumably got that name either because he was always ready and willing to do what needed to be done, or possibly because he tended to be willful and capricious.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 39 Polish citizens named Chętkiewicz. They lived in the following provinces: Katowice 1, Radom 31, Slupsk 2, Torun 5. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

The data indicates this name is usually found in the area of Radom in southeastern Poland, and perhaps was even at one time exclusively found there, so that those Chętkiewiczes in other areas had their roots originally near Radom. I'd hesitate to jump to that conclusion: there's nothing about the name that leads me to think it could only develop in one area. I suppose it's possible it was once more widespread, and for some reason these days it is mostly found near Radom. Still, that concentration certainly suggests a Radom connection is probable in most cases.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I have searched and searched to find some info on my mother’s family name...her name is Lydia Wierzejewski...she was born in Hindenburg in 1931 (Hindenburg OS is now called Zabrze) and moved into Northern Germany doing the Blitzkrieg.

In Polish Wierzejewski is pronounced roughly "v'yeah-zhay-EFF-skee." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland and is now online as a searchable database), there were 219 Polish citizens by that name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Leszno 44, Poznan 53, and Zielona Gora 50. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data indicates the name shows up most often in western Poland, in the region formerly ruled by Germany. However you don't need that information, since you know where your mother came from.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says that, like most names in the form X-ewski, this one generally refers to a family connection at some point centuries ago with a place beginning with the X part. In other words, we'd expect this name to mean "one from Wierzeje or Wierzejewo" or some place with a similar name.

Rymut specifically mentions Wierzeja, in Duszniki district of Wielkopolskie province, not too far from the city of Poznan (called Posen by Germans). I don't think we can conclude the name Wierzejewski always must mean "one from Wierzeja"; it means there is research that indicates some Wierzejewskis came from there. Perhaps all of them did, but only detailed research into the history of all Wierzejewskis could prove that.

If you'd like to see a map showing where Wierzeja is, go to www.pilot.pl and key in WIERZEJA in the box; then click on "Pokaz miasto." You'll get a map with a red circle showing where Wierzeja is, as well as a smaller map showing where that area is in relation to Poland as a whole.

To sum up, this surname is not particularly common, and appears mostly in west-central Poland. It probably refers to the name of a village or settlement the family was connected with; if noble, they owned an estate there, and if peasant, they lived and worked there. The name is especially likely to refer to the village of Wierzeja, not too far from Poznan; but in a given instance it might refer to some other place with a name beginning Wierzej-. The only way to prove the matter for sure is through tracing the family history as far back as possible, which may uncover information that sheds light on exactly when and how this name came to be associated with that family.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I wonder whether you are able to give me any information about the surname Chlebowski.

In Polish the "ch" and "h" are pronounced the same, as a guttural somewhat like the "ch" in German "Bach." Keeping that in mind, Chlebowski is pronounced roughly "chleh-BOFF-skee." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 3,271 Polish citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in documents as early as 1399, and refers to a family connection with any of a number of villages, settlements, etc. named Chlebów or Chlebowo or Chlebówka. There are quite a few of these, and the only way to tell which one a given family was connected with would be through genealogical research. The surname itself just doesn't tell us anything about that.

The basic root of the name is chleb, "bread." Chlebowo etc. would mean "[place] of bread." Thus Chlebowski would mean "[one] of the place of bread." But as I say, normally it should be interpreted as simply "one from Chlebowo/Chlebów, etc." In isolated instances it might mean "kin of the bread guy," but usually with surnames in the form X-owski the reference is to a place with a name beginning with the X part. It generally means the family lived or was otherwise connected with such a place at some point centuries ago. If they were noble, they owned an estate there; if they were peasants, they lived and worked there.

To sum up, there is probably not one big Chlebowski family, but rather a number of separate ones that came by the name independently, due to an association centuries ago with any of a number of places named Chlebów or Chlebowo or something similar, meaning "[place] of bread." Only genealogical research might help you pin down which one your particular family came from. I have no sources of info on individual families, so there's nothing I can tell you about your Chlebowskis beyond this.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Hello, my name is Carly and I was wondering if you had any information on the name of Chmiel or Chmill. I would really appreciate.

In Polish this name is usually spelled Chmiel, pronounced roughly "h'm'yell." The first sound isn't quite like English H, it's more like the guttural "ch" in German "Bach." But if you can manage to make an h- sound followed by an -m- sound followed by "yell," you'll be very close. Chmill doesn't look Polish, and I'd have to guess it's a misreading or misspelling of the original name.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 13,030 Polish citizens named Chmiel. They lived all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appeared in records as early as 1369, and it comes from the noun chmiel, "hops." So it simply began as a name for an ancestor whom people associated with hops. Perhaps he grew them, or sold them, or lived in an area where they grew in profusion -- or he may have been a maltster. All the name tells us is that there was something about him that made "Hops" seem like an appropriate name, and it stuck, being applied to his descendants.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

... can you give me any information on the name Chmielecki. I would be very grateful.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 3,223 Polish citizens named Chmielecki. The name is found all over Poland, but is most common in an area from the center of the country northward, in areas near the cities of Lodz, Płock, Warsaw, Gdansk, and so on. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

The name is pronounced roughly "h'myel-ET-skee," and comes ultimately from the noun chmiel, which means "hops," the grain. This surname might refer either to the kin of one called Chmielek, "little hops," possibly as a nickname of a reference to his father's occupation. But most likely it refers to a family's connection with a place named something like Chmielec, Chmielce, Chmielek, etc., meaning "place of the hops." One candidate is the village of Chmielek near Bilgoraj and Zamosc in southeastern Poland; one of my sources mentions that there were records that connected a noble family named Chmielecki with the estate at this place. But there may be, or may have been, other places with suitable names that I can't find in my sources. The thing is, Polish surnames developed centuries ago, and often came from the name of a field or hill or little settlement, names used only by locals, that would be unlikely to appear on any map or in any gazetteer. So the place this name refers to may be quite obscure, or may even have disappeared or renamed or absorbed into another community centuries ago.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

My ancestors from Peplin, Poland, had the name Malaske in the U.S. I just recently found an alternate spelling on a naturalization paper of Chmielecki. On another document, Chmieleski. Are any of these common Polish surnames?

As for Chmieleski, the standard form is Chmielewski. It is properly pronounced "h'myell-EFF-skee," but in everyday speech that ending is often pronounced "ess-kee," as if the name were spelled Chmieleski. Spellings in records were often phonetic, so it wouldn't be at all unusual to see the name spelled with -eski. But the standard form is Chmielewski.

It obviously comes from the same basic root as Chmielecki: the noun chmiel, "hops." Like Chmielecki, it would refer in most cases to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago. But whereas Chmielecki would usually refer to places with names such as Chmielek, Chmielik, Chmielnik, and so forth, Chmielewski would refer to places named Chmielew and Chmielewo. The distinction is that Chmielewski means literally "of the _ of the hops," and the unstated word that fills in the blank would be "place," so that Chmielewski means "one from Chmielew or Chmielewo," which in turn means "one from the place of hops." Chmielecki, however, has a diminutive suffix -ek or -ec added to the root, so that it means "one from the place of the little hops guy." A subtle distinction, perhaps, but the point is that the two names would usually refer to different place names.

However, the surnames are close enough that it would not be strange to see them confused sometimes. Unfortunately, in older records surnames often varied (even in English), so that you might see the same family called Chmielecki in one record, Chmielewski in another, perhaps Chmielewicz in a third, and so on. You have to keep in mind the possibility of such variation.

There are numerous places in Poland these names can refer to. So it's impossible to say which place either surname referred to in a given family's case. The only way to discover that would be through genealogical research, tracing your specific family back generation to generation, until you trace them to their ancestral village in Poland. At that point it might become possible to establish a connection between them and some nearby place with a name that fits.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 33,578 Polish citizens named Chmielewski, so that name is more common than Chmielecki. But it, too, is found all over Poland; the name itself gives no leads as to what part of the country a specific family came from.

Malaske can be a variation of a name in its own right, Mala[w]ski. But in this case it seems likely to be an Anglicized version of Chmiele[w]ski. Eastern European surnames were often mangled badly when immigrants came to the U. S., past the point of easy recognition. You often have no clue what the real name was until you do some research and find documents closer to the point of actual immigration. In this case, it's highly likely Malaske is the Americanized form, Chmielewski the Polish form, and Chmielecki a similar name with which Chmielewski was sometimes confused.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I would like to know meaning of the name Chrzan. Also if you know of any in Poland.

This name comes from the Polish word chrzan, which means "horse radish." Since these names are hundreds of years old, it can be tough to figure out now why a particular name seemed relevant to people who lived centuries ago on a different continent; but it might have started as a nickname referring to someone's favorite food, or the fact that they grew horse radish, or even because their smell or coloring someone reminded people of horse radish. This is a moderately common surname in Poland today; as of 1990 there were 2,805 Polish citizens named Chrzan, plus another 773 who used a variant form, Krzan. Chrzan is pretty common all over Poland; it seems to be a bit more common in southcentral and southeastern Poland (the region Poles call "Malopolska," "Little Poland") than elsewhere, but not to an extent that would offer any practical help with tracing a particular Chrzan family.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… If you could provide any information on the meaning of this surname [Zoltek], I could greatly appreciate it.

This is one of those names whose basic origin is pretty easy to determine, but it's tough saying exactly how or why it ended up as a surname. The basic root is clear, from Polish żółty, "yellow" -- I'm using ż to stand for the Polish z with a dot over it, pronounced much like "s" in English "pleasure"; ó is the o with an accent over it, pronounced like "oo" in "book"; and ł is for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w. The name would be pronounced something like "zhoow'-tek."

Anyway, the name means something like "yellow guy," and there is a Polish word żółtek, a kind of contemptuous term for "colored fellow." Most likely a name like this started as a nickname for a person who looked yellowish -- perhaps he had jaundice, or some other characteristic that people associated with the color yellow, or with bile. (I don't think it would be used like English "yellow" in the slang meaning of "cowardly," I don't think Polish makes that particular association). It's conceivable a person might get this name, also, because he had an Asiatic look to him. It's hard to say exactly why this name would "stick," all we can say for sure is that there was some sort of connection with "yellow" that was so obvious to people around him that they started calling him this, and the name stuck.

This is a moderately common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 755 Poles named Żółtek. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Gdansk (41), Krakow (54), Nowy Sacz (187), and Warsaw (80). This tells us there's no one part of the country a Żółtek must have come from, although the name is a bit more common in the southcentral part of Poland (the provinces of Nowy Sacz and Krakow). I realize this may not be a lot of practical help in finding where your ancestors came from, but I'm afraid that's the rule with Polish surnames -- I'd estimate fewer than 10% offer any useful clue in that regard.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I've looked everywhere....can you possibly help? Looking for the meaning of the Polish surname: Trafidlo

There are two possibilities here. The basic root of this name could be the verb trafić, "to hit the mark, be on target." But I can find no term trafidło. This might be a variant of the term trawidło, which is the name of an animal, "maw, abomasum, rennet (abomasum vitulinum)." Many Poles bear names derived from those of animals, sometimes because they raised them, hunted them, or something about a person reminded people of an animal (his movements, the color of his skin or clothes), or else he lived in an area where these animals was common. Such a name might start as a nickname and end up "sticking" as a surname. I suspect strongly that this surname Trafidło began as a variant of trawidło, since they are pronounced very similarly, "trah-FEED-woe" vs. "trah-VEED-woe."

Trafidło is a fairly rare name, as of 1990 there were only 156 Poles by that name; they were scattered all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Ciechanow (22), Rzeszow (35), Tarnobrzeg (34), and Wroclaw (23). Unfortunately there is no one area of the country we can say this name came from, although there is a bit of a concentration in the southeastern provinces of Rzeszow and Tarnobrzeg. Interestingly enough, as of 1990 there no Trawidło's, so if Trafidło is a variant of that name, it appears it's the form that's survived. That happens sometimes, but it is a bit odd.

Those are my best guesses as to the origin of the name. I hope this information is some help to you, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I appreciate your offer to give me whatever you might know about my surname which is "Wloka". I am told it is indeed Polish and supposedly is the name of an ancient land measure in Polish.

There was indeed an old land measure (still used till the metric system took over), the włóka -- I'm using ł to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w, and ó to stand for the Polish accented o, pronounced like "oo" in "book," so that the name is pronounced something like "V’WOOK-uh." The amount of land this unit designated varied from place to place and time to time, but as a rule it was more or less equivalent to 30 acres. A włóka was basically a full-sized farm, so the name might apply to a peasant who was fortunate enough to own a farm big enough to live on, as opposed to those who owned small pieces of land that wouldn't support them, so they had to hire out as laborers for others to make ends meet. Granted, there might be other ways a name like this got started, perhaps in reference to a fellow's size -- if he was a big man, he might be called this, sort of a nickname meaning "Big as a włóka." The verb from the same root means "to trail, drag along, shuffle feet," so the name might have some connection with those meanings. But I tend to think this particular name would most likely be a reference of some sort to the land measure and specifically to an ancestor’s owning that land.

As of 1990 there were 433 Włóka's in Poland, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Czestochowa (104), Piotrkow (119), and Poznan (45). Unfortunately the name appears in too many parts of the country to let us point at one specific place and say "Here's where a family by that name came from"; the most we can say is that a large chunk of the Włóka's live in southcentral Poland, in the provinces of Czestochowa and Piotrkow. But that's still a pretty big area to search. I'm afraid this is true of at least 90% of Polish surnames -- relatively few offer a really helpful clue in terms of tracing a family's origin.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… My sister and I have been trying for some time to glean more information about my paternal grandmother's ancestry. She died when my dad was quite young (somewhere between 1925 and 1935). The spelling of her maiden name on my dad's birth certificate is: Woiewodsky. Her given name is Lydia. Perhaps I have been barking under the wrong tree? Perhaps I need to begin with ascertaining the origin of this name. I thought it was Polish, but perhaps she was of some other descent....Polish-Russian-Jewish.....?

This name probably is Polish -- you might see it among other Slavs, but it is most likely to be associated with Poles. It is an adjectival form, and in modern Polish the standard spelling is Wojewódzki, pronounced roughly "vo-yeh-VOOT-skee." It comes from the word wojewoda, literally "war-leader, leader of warriors"; the word has even come into English as "voivode." This was a term used for officials in charge of large sections of Poland, and these subsequently became known as województwa, usually translated "provinces." The surname Wojewódzki would typically be applied to kin of a voivode or someone who worked for him, worked on land belonging to him, etc. -- the name really doesn't imply more specific than some sort of connection, close or distant, with a voivode. As of 1990 there were 1,775 Poles by this name; they lived all over the country, there is no one part of Poland with which this name is particularly identified. That makes sense, really, by its nature this name could get started almost anywhere under Polish rule, including lands east of Poland (Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine).

There are a lot of alternate spellings one might have to check in English, including: Voyevodski, Voyevodzky, Vojevodsky, Vojevodzki, Voievodski, Wojewodzki, Wojevotski, etc. So I'm not surprised you're having trouble pinning down any one. But Wojewódzki is the correct Polish form, if that helps.

By the way, Lydia is not an overly common first name among Poles. It is possible her name might originally have been Leokadia -- this name is unfamiliar to most Americans, so often Polish women named Leokadia decided to go by Lydia in English-speaking countries. This isn't a sure thing, by any means, but that link shows up often enough I thought it was worth mentioning.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I am working on a family tree searching for any information about my grandparents who came from Posna in the year 1890. His name was John Wiatrak and his wife's name was Mary Lesna or Lesney.

Wiatrak is a reasonably common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 1,129 Poles by that name. It comes from the root wiatr, "wind," and especially from the term wiatrak, "windmill." A person might have originally gotten such a name because he made windmills, worked at one, lived near one, etc. The name doesn't give us enough clues to be any more specific, we can only figure there was some association with wind and especially windmills that was obvious enough at the time to lead people to call a person by this name, and eventually it stuck as a surname. Some 17 of the Wiatrak's living in Poland in 1990 lived in the modern-day province of Poznan. The name is more common in the provinces of Kalisz (234), Krakow (128) and Radom (174). Kalisz province is southeast of Poznan, and it may at one time have been in the older, larger province of Poznan, so it's possible some of those Wiatrak's in Kalisz province were relatives of yours. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, so this is about all I can tell you.

Lesney is probably an Anglicized form of Polish Leśny (ś , pronounced like a soft "sh") -- Leśna would be the form used when referring to a female by the same name. The word leśny means "of the forest, woods," and might refer to a woodsman or a person who lived in the woods. It, too, is moderately common, as of 1990 there were 1,489 Poles named either Leśny or Leśna; 291 of them lived in the modern-day province of Poznan, and that general area seems to be where the name is most common, although you find people named Leśny all over the country.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… While doing some research for my family tree, I came across a reference on the Net regarding a possible list you may have of Polish surnames. I was wondering if you have ever come across the names of Niedojadlo, Pocica, Kieca, Cieslik or Barys?

Barys could come from German Bär, "bear," especially used as a first name, or from nicknames of first names beginning with Bar- such as Bartłomiej (Bartholomew); there are numerous other possibilities, but these seem the most likely sources of the name. As of 1990 there were 295 Poles named Barys and another 244 named Baryś (with the accent over the s). There's no one area in which the name is most common, you find Barys'es and Baryś'es all over Poland. Tarnow province had 72 inhabitants named Barys (none named Baryś), whereas the largest single group of Poles named Baryś (77) were in Czestochowa province in southcentral Poland.

Cieslik in Polish is Cieślik, using the Polish s with an accent over it, pronounced like a soft "sh," so that the name sounds like "CHESH-leek." It means "carpenter's son, carpenter's kin," and is quite common -- as of 1990 there were 15,022 Cieślik's in Poland, living all over the country.

Kieca can come from kiec, "skirt," or from kiec, "the corncrake" (a kind of bird). As of 1990 there were 573 Poles by this name, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (116), Krakow (97), and Tarnow (77), all in southcentral or southeastern Poland.

Niedojadło comes from the same root as niedojad, "insatiable fellow." It means literally "one who can't eat enough, one who can't get his fill." Presumably it referred to a fellow who looked like he hadn't missed any meals, or perhaps to someone who ate and ate and never got fat. It's a moderately common name, as of 1990 there were 577 Niedojadło's in Poland. (The ł represents the Polish slashed l, which is pronounced like our w, so that the name sounds like "nyeh-do-YAD-woe.")

I can't find any source that gives a clue what Pocica might come from. As of 1990 there were 229 Poles by that name, with the main concentration, 179, in the province of Tarnow in southeastern Poland.

I think my family is from Southern Poland. I have the towns listed as Grudna Gorna, Malo and Pilzno. I also have info from the Parish Church of Siedliska Bogusz. I'm sure that I probably spelled all of those wrong!

Actually, they all look right to me!

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

… I am trying to find the orgin of our last name - Ziomkowski/Ziombkowski.

The problem here is, which form of the name is right? Sometimes you can change three or four letters and it makes no difference, other times a single letter can make all the difference in the world. For what it's worth, in either case the name most likely started as a reference to the name of a village or settlement the family lived at one time -- most -owski names started that way. So for instance Ziombkowski is probably a variant of Ziąbkowski -- the Polish nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it and pronounced usually much like on in French bon, but before b or p like "om." So the name could be spelled either Ziąbkowski or Ziombkowski. One possible candidate could be the village of Ziąbki in Skierniewice province; people from there might very well end up with the name Ziąbkowski, meaning nothing more than "one from Ziąbki." The basic root is either zięba, "chaffinch," or ziębić, "to chill." Thus Ziąbki probably started out meaning "the place of the chaffinches," and Ziąbkowski was "one from the place of the chaffinches."

If the name is properly Ziomkowski, the basic root is ziemia, "land, earth," but again, the surname probably means just "one from Ziomek/Ziomki/Ziomkowo" or some other similar name. One candidate is Ziomek in Ostrołęka province, but I'm sure there are others, that's the only one big enough to show up on my maps. In the centuries since surnames were established, many of the little villages or settlements they originally referred to have since disappeared, changed names, merged with other communities, etc. so often it's hard to find the particular one a family's surname refers to in a specific case. The best advice is to use your research to find the specific area in Poland where the family lived, then see if you can find some village or community nearby that started with a similar name, such as Ziomek or Ziomki or Ziomkowo or Ziąbki. If you do, chances are good that's the place the surname came from.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

CICHEWSKI -- CICHOWSKI

… My last name is Cicheskie, This is the exact spelling of my grandfather and greatgrandfather (both of whom were born in Poland). They came to this country (settling in PA) in approx. 1903. Can you help with the orig. and also why the ending in -skie instead of -ski?

This name, in this form, does not exist in Poland any more -- at least there was no one named Cicheski or Cicheskie as of 1990. Most likely this is a variant form of a name that has since been standardized. The basic root is clearly cichy, "quiet, calm, peaceful," and the surname probably started as a reference to origin in a town or village named Ciche, Cichewo, Cichowo, something like that (all of which would mean basically "quiet place, or place of the quiet one"). In many parts of Poland the w in the ending -ewski is pronounced very softly or even dropped, so we are probably dealing with a name that was Cichewski but came to be spelled as it was pronounced.

There were 3,435 Poles named Cichowski as of 1990, and this may be relevant because the suffixes -owski and -ewski are basically the same thing; whether the vowel is e or o depends on Polish linguistics. There has been a bit of standardization going on in Poland since literacy became more or less universal, so a lot of variant forms of names have disappeared as people started going by the "standard" form. That may be what happened here -- some folks who used to go by Cichewski or Cicheski may have changed it to Cichowski, but this happened after some of the family had emigrated. That may explain why Cicheski is no longer seen in Poland.

In any case, it's a pretty sure bet the surname means "one from Ciche, Cichy, Cichowo," etc., and there are quite a few places in Poland that bear names that qualify. If you can find out what specific part of Poland the family came from, search that area for places with names starting Cich-, and if you find one nearby, chances are good that's the place the name originally referred to. It's doubtful any records go back far enough to prove it, but you never know!

As for -skie vs. -ski, I doubt it's significant. That may just be an Anglicized form, meant to help people pronounce the -ski correctly. It is true that, grammatically speaking, Cicheskie can be a form of the name Cicheski, referring to more than one female; thus if you saw a Polish-language document referring to, say, "Marta and Anna and Agata Cicheski," the Polish would be "Marta i Anna i Agata Cicheskie." That could account for the spelling -- or as I said, it may just be a spelling variant. I doubt it really makes any difference.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

JURGIEL

… I'm interested in finding any information on the name Jurgiel. It's my last name. I know it's Polish. But I've never heard of anyone else with it. If you could help I would be grateful. I'm trying to look up my heritage.

Jurgiel is one of many surnames that come from first names, in this case from a form of the name that appears in Polish as Jerzy, in English as George, in Czech as Jiri, in German as Georg, etc. The particular form Jurg- is thought to have been influenced by German (that -rg- toward the end is the tip-off). That doesn't mean the family bearing the name wasn't Polish -- over the centuries many, many ethnic groups have interacted with Poles and left some trace on the forms of names in particular areas. It's also worth mentioning that the name "George" shows up in Lithuanian as Jurgis (again, at some point in the distant past they may have gotten the name from Germans living in the area), and Jurgelis is a moderately common surname among Lithuanians -- it would mean basically "little George, son of George." Jurgiel might come into Polish by way of contact with Lithuanians or Germans, but that would not make it any less a Polish name. (After all, many saints' names appear in many European languages, yet are originally of Greek, Hebrew, or Latin origin -- but Pierre is no less French for having come from Latin Petrus). Whatever the exact origin, the name probably began as meaning "son of George."

As of 1990 there were 491 Polish citizens named Jurgiel. They lived in small numbers in many provinces, but the largest numbers show up in the provinces of Białystok (154), Pila (44), and Szczecin (39). Białystok is in northeastern Poland, right by the border with Lithuania and Belarus, and Pila and Szczecin are in northwestern Poland, where there were and are a lot of people of German ethnic origin -- so again we see a possible link with Lithuanian and German. But as I say, that doesn't make the Jurgiel's any less Polish... Interestingly, the surname Jurgielewicz, literally "son of Jurgiel," is more common than Jurgiel itself; as of 1990 there were 1,213 Poles named Jurgielewicz, and again, the name is most common in northern Poland, in areas near where Poles had constant contact with Germans and Lithuanians.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

ADAMCZAK -- TIPINSKI -- CIPINSKI

My maternal grandfather's name was Stanley Vincent Adamczak. Is this a variant of Adamczyk that existed in Poland? Or is it a misspelling made upon arrival in the USA?

ADAMCZAK is very likely correct. The suffixes -czak and -czyk both mean "son of," and many names exist in both forms. So ADAMCZAK, pronounced "ah-DOM-chock," is just as good a name as ADAMCZYK ("ah-DOM-chick"). As of 1990 there were 7,872 Polish citizens named Adamczak, as opposed to 49,599
named Adamczyk; both names are found all over Poland, with no useful concentration in any one area. I don't know why the form with -czyk is so much more common than the one with -czak, but we sometimes see these puzzling phenomena with names.

My second major questions is: My maternal gransmother's name was Belle Marie Tipinski, and her father, Boleslaw Tipinski, came from Poland circa 1900. Is the name Tipinski in your book? And is it a common name in Poland?

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were no Polish citizens named TIPINSKI. This is not surprising: while the combination TI is not totally unknown in Polish, it doesn't usually occur in native Polish names and words. Poles prefer instinctively to use either
TY-, which sounds sort of like the "ti" in English "tip," or else CI-,
which sounds kind of like "ch" in "cheese." But the combination of T with I just doesn't usually happen in Polish except with words and names borrowed from other languages.

So the question is, what was the name originally? Or what is the standard form of the name today? It's tricky trying to figure something like this out, because there are literally hundreds of thousands of Polish names, and a change of one letter can sometimes involve enormous differences. But following the logic of what I just said, I see three likely possibilities: 1) TYPINSKI; 2) CIPINSKI; 3) the name originated as TIPINSKI in some other
Slavic language, possibly Russian or Ukrainian, and was brought into Polish as is.

As of 1990 there were 74 Polish citizens named TYPINSKI (accent over the N, pronounced roughly "tip-EEN-skee"). They were scattered in small numbers all over Poland, with by far the largest number 29, living in the province of Zamosc, on the Ukrainian border. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

There were 90 Poles named CIPINSKI (accent over the N, pronounced roughly "chee-PEEN-skee"). The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Katowice, 33; Skierniewice, 21; and Wroclaw, 11.

As I said, there were no TIPINSKI's in Poland as of 1990, and I have no other data for other countries. None of my sources on other languages discuss this name.

In any event, the name probably refers to a place name, meaning "one from Tipin/Cipin/Typin" or some similar name. Without being sure of the surname's form, it's hard to say what the name of the place might have been. There's a place named Ciepien, that's a possibility, but there are others. If you'd like to investigate some of the possibilities, you could go to this Website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm

Enter "Cipin" or "Typin" or "Tipin" as the place you're looking for (they all code the same in Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex anyway) and hit "Start Search." It will provide a long list of places in Eastern Europe with names that could be a phonetic match for this name. Most of them you can ignore; concentrate mainly on places in Belarus, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine that are reasonably close to the spellings I gave. Who knows, this might give you something to work with.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

WASELEWICZ

I have never seen my given surname posted anywhere, nor have I any knowledge of it's origins. In college, a German professor asked if I knew the etymology of my name. He indicated that he thought it had some religious significance. Possibly you could help id some way. The name is Waselewicz. Thank you.

In Polish the suffix -ewicz means "son of," and Wasel- is a variant of the Eastern Slavic first name Poles spell Wasilij; we would spell it Vasily. It developed as a first name from the Greek word basileus, "king." Via the Orthodox Church this name came into usage among Eastern Slavs (Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians) as Vasily or Vasyl or Vasylko; in Polish it became Bazyli, and in English it became Basil. Note that languages influenced primarily by Latin retained the initial B sound, whereas the Greek-influenced Eastern Slavs turned it into a V sound, which Poles spell with the letter W.

It's not unusual for Slavs in general to have used a great many different forms of the name before one or two finally came to be regarded as standard, and this often shows up in surnames, which developed centuries ago. So even though the standard form of the first name these days is Vasily, it's not odd that it might appear as Vasel, especially when a suffix was added. The name probably originated among Belarusians or Ukrainians as Vaselevich, but Polish was the standard language of record for a long time in those regions, and thus the Polish spelling Waselewicz came into existence.

The bottom line, therefore, is that the name means "son of Basil." It almost certainly originated among Belarusians, or Ukrainians (or perhaps Russians, but that's less likely). Later it came to be written in Polish form because Polish was the language of record for the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included Lithuania, Belarus, and most of Ukraine. Various different forms of this same basic name appear among Poles, including Wasilewicz, borne by 765 Polish citizens as of 1990, and Wasylewicz, borne by 240. As of 1990, according to the best data available, there were no Polish citizens who spelled the name WASELEWICZ -- probably because over the last century there has been a tendency to standardize name spellings, influenced by the greater degree of literacy. If you looked in older records for some of those families with the names Wasilewicz and Wasylewicz, chances are quite good you would see those names occasionally spelled Waselewicz. Wasielewicz is also a plausible spelling variation.

Unfortunately I have no data on the frequency of the name in Belarus or Ukraine, and of course it would be spelled in Cyrillic, not the Roman alphabet, looking kind of like this:

B A C E JI E B N 4

The N is backwards, the JI is joined at the top with a horizontal stroke, and 4 is a pretty weak approximation of the letter in question -- but if you ever see the name in Cyrillic, this may be close enough to help you recognize it.

That's about all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

MAJORSZKY -- MAJORSKI

I saw your site on the internet and thought I would write you. I have a Polish name in our family background and was wondering if you have any information on it. The name has been in Hungary since before 1840 and the spelling is probably a bit Hungarianized too, but family history says that it came from Poland and was lower royalty. The name is MAJORSZKY. Do you have anything on that?

I don't have anything specifically on this name, but I can venture an educated guess and feel fairly confident it's right. I've run into a lot of Hungarian names borne by Poles, with spellings modified so that they're written the way Poles expect a name pronounced that way to be spelled. And I've seen at least some Polish names borne by Hungarians, similarly modified. In Hungarian the sound Poles spell as S, a simple "s" sound as in "so," is written SZ. And just to make things really confusing, Hungarians use the letter S to stand for the "sh" sound Poles write as SZ! Hungarian is exactly backwards from Polish in that respect.

So we're not assuming too much if we figure a Pole named MAJORSKI (or possibly someone from another Slavic group, a Czech or Slovak, etc.) could very well have come to live in Hungary, and gradually the spelling was changed to reflect Hungarian norms. Polish MAJORSKI and Hungarian MAJORSZKY are pronounced so similarly that this hypothesis is quite plausible.

MAJORSKI is not a common name at all in Poland these days -- as of 1990 the best data available shows only 2 Poles by that name, both living somewhere in the province of Bydgoszcz. There are other names, however, from the same root that are more common, including MAJOR (1,779), MAJORCZYK (868), MAJOREK (932), MAJOROWSKI (223), etc. I'm not sure why Majorski isn't more common -- perhaps most of the folks by that name moved to Hungary!? There may be more to this, but none of my sources go into it.

MAJORSKI comes from the Latin word _major_ or _maior_, "greater, bigger," and especially in a sense of rank or position, such as "major" in the military and even "mayor" as head of a town's government. So the name MAJORSKI certainly could be connected with a degree of rank and authority. I don't have specifics on noble families, so there's not a lot more I can tell you. But you might be able to learn more if you post a question to the mailing list Herbarz-L. It is frequented by gentlemen with access to various armorials and libraries, and very often they are able to provide some information on specific noble families and their coats of arms.

To subscribe (which costs nothing), send an E-mail message with just the word SUBSCRIBE to this address:

HERBARZ-L-request@rootsweb.com

No one reads this note -- a computer will process it automatically, add you to the mailing list, and send you a brief note explaining procedures. Then you can post a note to the list itself, where it will be read by the members, at this address:

HERBARZ-L@rootsweb.com

That's about all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

MISIOROWSKI

Do you have any information on the above family name? From Ulcie Solna, east of Kraków. Still have family in Poland with this name. Was told at one point that it meant butcher or meat cutter.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 245 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 33, Katowice 31, Kielce 53, and Krakow 35; the rest lived in much smaller numbers all over the country. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

With some Polish names it's fairly easy to tell what they come from without detailed info on a given family; with others there just is no way to say anything firm without research into the family's background. MISIOROWSKI is one of the latter. Names in the form X-owski usually refer to the name of a place beginning with the X part, with which the family was connected at one time; if they were noble, they owned it, and if not, they lived and worked there. So you'd expect this name to mean "one from Misiory or Misiorowo" or some similar name. But offhand I can't find any places with names that qualify. The thing is, Polish surnames developed centuries ago, and often came from the name of a field or hill or little settlement, names used only by locals, that would be unlikely to appear on any map or in any gazetteer. So the place this name refers to may be quite obscure, or may even have disappeared or renamed or absorbed into another community centuries ago.

If the form of the surname is reliable, it would seem to mean "one from Misiory or Misiorowo," and that name in turn comes from the noun misiora, "sorrel, mousetail (Myosurus)"; so the surname could be interpreted as "one from the place of sorrel." But I hesitate to accept that because there is, in fact, a noun misiarz that means "one who gelds animals." That -rz would simplify to -r- when suffixes were added, and the -a- could easily change to -o-; we see that happen all the time with Polish names. So even though the name appears to refer to a connection with a place name derived from misiora, it would be foolish not to recognize the real possibility that the name has changed slightly over the centuries and originally meant "kin of the animal gelder, one from the place of the animal gelders." 

As far as that goes, the Polish word for "meat" is mięso (the e has a tail under it and is pronounced roughly like "en"). Given a little change in the pronunciation and spelling of the name, Misiorowski might originally have referred to a butcher or meat dealer. The form of the name as we have it now suggests otherwise; but the name certainly might have changed somewhere along the way, even before the family ever left Poland.

As I say, without detailed research into your particular family, there's no way I can know which one meaning is relevant. It's one thing to say misiarz or mięso could yield a name in the form Misior-; it's another thing to prove it actually happened. So all I can do is offer these plausible explanations. With any luck your research may help you uncover some fact that will settle the matter one way or the other. 

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

GREGORCZYK -- GRZEGORCZYK

I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the surname
Gregorczyk. My grandmother was Polish, but her family anglicized the name to Gregor after they arrived in Canada. I believe that the original Polish name was Gregorczyk.  They lived in what was then Austrian Poland (Galicia). I wonder if this name  was common in that part of Poland.

The standard spelling of this name in Polish is GRZEGORCZYK. It is possible that your ancestors bore this name with Gregor- instead of Grzegor-, because there are regional differences in pronunciation that can affect spelling. A German linguistic influence, for instance, might affect this name and make it Gregor- instead of Grzegor-. But more often than not, Poles would spell this name Grzegorczyk, and pronounce it sort of like "g'zheh-GORE-chick" (whereas Gregorczyk would be more like "greh-GORE-chick").

It comes from the first name Grzegorz, the Polish form of the name we call "Gregory." The -czyk suffix is quite common in Polish, and in surnames usually translates as "son of." So this is one of several
surnames in Polish that translate as "son of Gregory." As such, it is a name that could develop independently almost anywhere people spoke Polish and there were guys named Grzegorz. So we'd expect it to be moderately common and widespread, with no concentration in any one part of the country.

That is what modern distribution and frequency data shows. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 10,123 Polish citizens named GRZEGORCZYK, living all over Poland. As for the non-standard spelling GREGORCZYK, it, too, is reasonably common; there were 3,999 Poles who used that form of the name. It's interesting, though, that there was a definite concentration of Poles by that name in the southeastern province of Radom -- 1,218. The other provinces with large numbers were Ciechanow, 115; Katowice 380; Kielce, 113; Kraków 165; Lublin 130; Olsztyn 124; Szczecin 119; and Warsaw, 348.

This data doesn't allow one to focus too precisely on any one area; but it does suggest that the name is especially common in that part of former Galicia near the city of Radom. Perhaps this will be some help to you.

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

SZRPARSKI -- TRZENZALSKI -- TRZEMZALSKI

I have two surnames that I am stumped on. They are: Tekla SZRPARSKI and Stanislawa TRZENZALSKI. I am assuming that these two women are from somewhere around the area of Strzelno, Poland, which is near Gniezno, as that is where their spouses were from. I wondered if anyone has access to the Slownik Nazwisk and could possibly do a lookup for me in that, to see where these names were concentrated at. Also, does anyone have any ideas of what these two names could possibly mean?

Unfortunately, the Slownik nazwisk says there was no one in Poland by either of those names. It's possible the names were rare and died out after the families emigrated. But more often, when I run into something like this, it turns out the forms of the names are wrong -- somewhere along the line they've been misread or distorted. Before looking I thought SZRPARSKI had to be mangled, and I strongly suspect TRZENZALSKI is too. Those don't look or sound right. And considering how many hundreds of thousands of Polish surnames there are, it can be very difficult to take a distorted or misspelled form and deduce what the original was. Sometimes you can -- it's not too tough to see that Covalsky is Kowalski, or Catcavage is Kotkiewicz -- but usually it's not possible because there are just too many variables.

I did find one possibility for Trzenzalski, however, and it looks pretty good: TRZEMZALSKI (dot over the second Z). As of 1990 there were 89 Polish citizens by this name. They were scattered all over in small numbers: the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (12), Katowice (19), and Krosno (18). Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

This surname most likely refers to the name of a place with which the family was connected at some point. The only candidate I could find is TRZEMŻAL in former Bydgoszcz province. If you'd like to see where it is, go to this Website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm

Enter TRZEMZAL as the place you're looking for, and click on "Start Search." You'll get a list of places with names that COULD phonetically match up with Trzemzal. Scroll down till you find: TRZEMZAL 5233 1754 POLAND 132.2 miles W of Warsaw. Click on it, and you should get a map that shows the location. The Strzelno you mentioned is perhaps, oh, 10-15 km. ENE of Trzemzal, so it's reasonable to suppose that in your ancestors' case the surname just mean "one from Trzemzal." It could be Trzenzalski is just an misspelling, or it could possibly be a legitimate phonetic variation of the name, since the EM and EN sounds can be pretty
close. Either way, I strongly suspect this is the answer to your
question on this name.

As for Szrparski, the only thing I can suggest is to keep doing research until you find a document with a reliable spelling and a name of the place of origin. If you find that, let me know and I'll see if I can tell you anything. Good luck!

MNICH

I would appreciate any information concerning the surname "MNICH".

According to Polish experts, this surname comes from the Polish noun mnich, "monk, friar." Presumably it originated as a nickname for the relatives of one who was a monk, or as a nickname for one who somehow reminded people of a monk, or even one who was the opposite of a monk -- the name may have been meant ironically in some cases. As of 1990 there were 2,734 Polish citizens named Mnich, living all over Poland, with no particular concentration in any one part of the country.

SADLOWSKI -- KRZYKWA -- GIZYNSKI -- JORGELEIT -- JURGELATJTIS

I just found your information on the internet for Polish surnames. Unfortunately my family names are not listed. If you could give me any information on any of the names I would appreciate it very much. SADLOWSKI, KRZYKWA, GIZYNSKI, JORGELEIT OR JURGELATJTIS

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 836 Polish citizens named GIZYNSKI. In Polish this name is spelled with a dot over the Z and an accent over the N, and pronounced roughly "gi-ZHIN-skee." It derives ultimately from the noun giza, "hind leg of a pig or ox," but it probably refers to the family's connection with any of a number of places with names somehow connected with that root, such as Gizyn and Gizyno. If you'd like to see some of the places this surname might be connected with, search for "Gizyn" at this Website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm 

JORGELEIT is a Germanized or Anglicized form of the name JURGELAITIS, which is actually Lithuanian in origin and means basically "son of little George." 

KRZYKWA was the name of 272 Polish citizens as of 1990. Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the noun krzykwa, "storm."

SADLOWSKI was borne by 2,879 Poles as of 1990. It is another name referring to a place name, Sadlow or Sadlowo or something similar, deriving from the noun sadlo, "fat, lard." So the surname means roughly "one from Sadlow or Sadlowo" and can further be broken down as "one from the place of fat or lard."

GLAZA

I am trying to find the origin and history of the name Glaza. I know of a Johannes Glaza (b. 1822) who lived in the city of Sliwice (Cewice) if that is any help. Thank you very much for your time!

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 928 Polish citizens named GLAZA. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (302) and Gdansk (373), with the rest scattered in much smaller numbers all over the country. 

None of my sources give any definitive information on what this name comes from. It might possibly come from the noun glaz, "glaze, silver mixed with gold," or from German Glas, "glass." There is a native Polish word głaz, "stone, boulder," but the problem is that it has the L with a slash through it (which I represent on-line as Ł, pronounced like our W ), and it is very hard to say whether and under what circumstances it would be relevant to a name with the standard L. As of 1990 there was no one in Poland named GŁAZA, but there were 2,013 named GŁAZ. So it's very much debatable as to whether that has anything to do with GLAZA.

MLECZEWSKI -- NUSZKOWSKI

A friend of mine just gave me your website and told me you do quick surname origins and meanings. I am wondering if you would be kind enough to consider a short analysis of my maiden name, which was Mleczewski. Old Bible records indicate my grandfather was born either in 1889 or 1890 in Tadejewo, Rypin, Pomarskie, POLAND. I recall, as a child, I was told he was a well-educated man, who served as a governmental interpreter. I do remember he spoke several languages. (Don't know if you want or need this last information, but for what it might be worth, I've included it.) His mother's maiden name was Nuszk'owska. >>

Literally Mleczewski means "of, from the _ of milk"; in names ending with -ewski or -owski, that blank is filled in with something so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out, either with "place" or "kin." So this name could mean "kin of the milk guy." But more likely it means "one from the place of milk," referring to a place with a name derived from Polish mleko, "milk." Such a place could be named Mleczew or Mleczewo, or almost anything beginning with Mlecz-. There is at least one good candidate, Mleczewo, a few kilometers east of Sztum, which is southeast of Gdansk and southwest of Elblag. Mleczewski makes perfect sense as meaning "one from Mleczewo." However, it is quite possible there are or were other places with names from which the surname might develop; Mleczewo's just the best one I could find offhand.

By the way, he was born in Tadejewo (or Tadajewo?), Rypin, Pomorskie. That's just an adjective referring to the region of Pomerania. There's a Tadajewo very near Rypin, east of Torun -- presumably that's the place you're referring to. It's quite a distance south of Mleczewo, so it's hard to say whether that Mleczewo is the place to which the name refers in your ancestor's case; but it is at least possible.

Mleczewski is not a very common name at all. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were only 29 Poles by that name. They lived in the provinces of Gdansk (5), Torun (21), and Wloclawek (3). Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have. As of 1990 Rypin and Tadajewo were in Wloclawek province, so that suggests those 3 Mleczewskis in that province might be relatives; for that matter, some of the 21 in Torun province might also be, that's not too far away.

It's interesting that Nuszkowski is also a rare name: there were only 22 Poles by that name, living in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (8), Gdansk (10), and Szczecin (4). It, too, probably refers to a place named something like Nuszki or Nuszkowo. I can't find any places by those names on modern maps, but that's not unusual -- surnames developed centuries ago, and often the places they referred to have since disappeared, changed names, become too small to show up on most maps, etc.

MARAJDA

I ... wondered if you had ever come across the name "MARAJDA" in your investigations? My husband's grandmother was an Anna Marajda, and she married a Peter Wisniak. He spoke Russian and Polish, she only Polish.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 23 Polish citizens named MARAJDA. Two of them lived somewhere in the province of Sieradz, the rest lived in the province of Lodz. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have. But perhaps it will help you focus your research on the Lodz area, since the odds are that's the most likely area in which to find relatives.

As for the derivation or meaning of this name, I'm afraid none of my sources give any information at all. This makes me suspect the name is not Polish in origin. But I couldn't find anything on it in my German, Lithuanian, or Ukrainian sources, either. So I'm at a loss to suggest what language it came from, let alone what it means. Most Polish names beginning with Mar- come either from short forms of the first name Marek, "Mark," or from the noun mara, "phantom, nightmare." There's also a verb marac that means "to dirty, smear, soil." But I can think of no plausible way for MARAJDA to come from any of those roots.

GRYGLEWICZ -- FARON

My husband's grandparents immigrated from Poland in the very early 1900's. Their names are listed as Andrez Gryglewicz and Anna Farron. I am having trouble researching them. Could you tell me what the origin of the names are and if I am even close in spelling.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 537 Polish citizens named GRYGLEWICZ, so this is probably a correct spelling of the name. The suffix -ewicz means "son of," and Grygl- comes from Grygiel, a kind of nickname or variant from of the first name we know as "Gregory." So the surname means basically "son of Greg." That name Grygiel is found more in the eastern part of Poland or the regions just east of there, i.e., Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine; so most likely the first bearers of this name came from that general area. In the centuries since then, however, the name has been spread all over Poland -- these days there is no one region in which this name is concentrated.

As for FARRON, Poles usually don't use double letters unless you
actually pronounce the letter twice; the doubling of the R probably
happened after the family left Poland. In this case, I suspect the original form was FARON, pronounced roughly "FAR-own," a name borne by 1,701 Polish citizens as of 1990 (there was no one named FARRON). The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 194, Kraków 98, Nowy Sacz 769, and Opole 166. So it is most common in southcentral and southwestern Poland.

I found only one expert who discussed this name, but he was an expert on names in the Nowy Sacz region, which is where the name is most common -- so his insights are probably reliable. He said it derives from faron, which is a variant of the noun piorun, "lightning." Presumably it started as a nickname for one whom people somehow associated with lightning. He mentions it might also be connected with the noun fanfaron, which came from French and means "boaster, braggart, fop."

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by Permission.  

Copyright © 2000 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I would appreciate any information you could give me on the name Chmielinski and where in Poland it originated.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,839 Polish citizens named Chmieliński. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Ciechanow 204, Gdansk 223, Katowice 116, Olsztyn 211, Ostrołęka 196, and Warsaw 218. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data shows that the name is found all over Poland, and there is no one region with which it is associated.

As I say, in Polish this name is spelled with an accent over the N, and it is pronounced roughly "h'myell-EEN-skee" -- the initial H sound is a little bit guttural, like the ch in German "Bach."

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it refers to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago, a place with the name Chmielno or Chmielen. Unfortunately, there are several such places in Poland, and without detailed information into a specific family's background, there's no way to know which one the surname derives from in their particular case. That's probably why the name appears all over the country: there isn't just one Chmieliński family, but a number of different ones, named for various different places all over Poland.

If you'd like to see maps showing at least some of these places, go to this Website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.htm  

Enter "chmieln" as the place you're looking for, select "Poland" as the country to be searched, and select "Search using Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex." Click on "Start the search," and after a moment you'll see a list of various places in Poland with names that are reasonably good phonetic matches with Chmieln-. The first four on the list are the best matches. For each one, click on the blue numbers (latitude and longitude) and you'll get a map showing that location. You can print the map, save it, zoom in and out, etc. This will give you some idea where the places called Chmielen and Chmielno are located, and at some point in your research this may allow you to make a correlation that proves handy.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Would you have any information as to the names Choynowski or Chojnowski? The only information I could find is that its associated with the Polish clan Lubicz. Any info would be appreciated.

Chojnowski could also be spelled Choynowski in older Polish, but in modern spelling that "y" sound would be represented with J. Other likely spelling variations are Hojnowski and Hoynowski. In Polish the H and CH are pronounced exactly the same, so either spelling is possible; within the last century or so, though, spellings have tended to become somewhat standardized, and the standard spelling of this name these days is Chojnowski. You want to note the other spellings, however, because spelling wasn't always reliable in old records, so you might find the name spelled any of the ways I've mentioned.

The H or CH is a little more guttural than the English H, it sounds somewhat like "ch" in German "Bach"; that said, the name is pronounced "hoy-NOFF-skee," however it's spelled.

As of 1990 there were 7,211 Polish citizens named Chojnowski (only 161 who spelled it Hojnowski). The Chojnowskis lived all over Poland; there were particularly large numbers in the provinces of Białystok, 350; Łomża, 1,957; Olsztyn, 299; Ostrołęka, 548; Suwałki, 347; Torun, 322; and Warsaw, 712. So the name is most common in northcentral to northeastern Poland.

The ultimate root of the name is the noun chojna, "fir, spruce." Names in the form X-owski usually refer to the names of places with which the families were connected. If a Chojnowski family was noble, at some point they owned an estate with a name beginning Chojn-, so that the surname meant essentially "of the place of the firs or spruces." If they were peasants, they lived and worked at a place with an appropriate name somewhere along the line.

There are a number of villages and settlements in Poland named Chojna, Chojnów, Chojnowo, etc., so without more specifics on an individual family there's no way to know which of those places the surname refers to in a given case. As I said, I can't even say for sure the family was noble, because originally -owski names were used only by nobility -- X-owski meant "[lord] of X" -- but as time went on peasants took such names as well. In their case, X-owski simply meant "one from X."

So to be sure your family was of the noble Chojnowskis, you'd have to trace the bloodline back and establish a connection with a recognized noble. I'm not saying your family is or isn't of noble origin. I'm just saying you can't tell from the name itself. Only genealogical research would establish the point.

Copyright © 2002 W.F. Hoffman. All rights reserved. Used by permission.