To: Kevin Szysz,kevinms@nw.com.au, who wrote:

...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), Bialystok (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.

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To: Deanna O'Neil, Sonnetdk@aol.com, who wrote:

... 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 Naskre~t, with e~ standing for the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced much like en; any name with e~ is likely to be spelled with e~ or en, and any name with en is likely to be spelled with e~. As of 1990 there were 201 Poles who used the spelling Naskrent and 1,501 who used Naskre~t. I don't have solid information on exactly what the name comes from, but it probably is connected to the expression naskrze~tnie, "crossways," or na, "on" + skre~t, "turn, veer." Of the Naskre~t'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).

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To: Redfordbob@aol.com

... 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 -- the address is given on my Surname webpage at http://www.polishroots.org/surnames_index.htm.

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To wkissel@together.net, who wrote:

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.

Zaja~c (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 (on-line we use a~ to represent that). It comes from the word zaja~c, "hare," and is a very common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 48,349 Polish citizens named Zaja~c, living all over the country... When people named Zaja~c 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.

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To: Jessica N. Sevy, shrew@flash.net, who wrote:

...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 ke~pa, "cluster of trees; holm" (e~ is how we indicate on-line 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, Ke~pka 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 Ke~pka, 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, Bialystok 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.

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To: John E. Raschke, Johann1@aol.com, who wrote:

... 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 Radosl~aw and Rasl~aw. 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 Radosl~aw and Rasl~aw + -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 Radosl~aw or Rasl~aw." 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.

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To: Slatocha@aol.com, who wrote:

...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."

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To: Stan Szycman, stan.szycman@bbs.multiline.com.au, who wrote:

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, Suwalki 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!

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To: SARALEACH@aol.com, who wrote:

...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 Bial~ousz (where l~ stands for the Polish l with a slash through it, 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 Bial~ousz, 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, Ostroleka 42, Plock 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 Bial~ous, which appears to mean the same thing; I would have thought Bial~ousz would have been the more common form.

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To: Richard Stybak ,HANDBALL64@aol.com, who wrote:

...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, S~wiez*y (written with an accent over the S and a dot over the z, 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 S~wierzy (which is pronounced exactly the same) and 266 who spelled it S~wiez*y. The largest number of S~wiez*y'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.

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To: Bob Burrows, BURROWS@WLNET.NOS.NOAA.GOV, who wrote:

...I didn't find my surname on your current list on the PGSA 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.

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To: Jerry Gieraltowski, gieraltowski@lucent.com, who wrote:

... 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.

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To: John D. Lavendoski, johndl@onramp.net, who wrote:

...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 Udzin~ski, 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 Chudzin~ski or Judzin~ski or L~udzin~ski 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 Udzin~ski is correct, and see if you can get a line on some of those Udzin~ski's living in Torun province. That's not a sure thing, but weighing probabilities, it seems the best bet.

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To: bnoble@pip.elm.mq.edu.au, who wrote:

...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!

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To: Albert Lammers, marynarz@zeelandnet.nl, who wrote:

...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 Lodz province. So there are still people by that name in the general area of Lodz (not necessarily in the city itself, but at least in the province of which Lodz 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 Lodz 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 www.pgsa.org, 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 Swia~tkowska, a common one?

Yes, this is a fairly common name, although it is more common in the spelling S~wia~tkowski (accent over the S, tail under the a) -- both that spelling and S~wiontkowski are pronounced the same, something like "shvyont-KOFF-skee." As of 1990 there were 5,793 Poles who spelled the name S~wia~tkowski, as opposed to only 48 who spelled it S~wiontkowski.

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To: Jchicklows@aol.com, who wrote:

...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 (Bernard John 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 Chichl~owski (the l~ 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), Suwalki (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 Chichl~owo" or some similar name. I cannot find any place by that name, but there is a village Chechl~owo, served by Sledianów parish, in Bialystok province, 13.5 km. northwest of Drohiczyn, that has been called Chichl~owo in the past -- the surname could refer to that village. The root chechl~o means "marshy depression, wet meadows," so a village in or near such wet ground could get the name Chechl~owo or Chichl~owo or Chychl~owo, 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. For more info, visit their Website at http://members.aol.com/pgsne2/.

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To: Audrey Zatarian, Zatriani@aol.com, who wrote:

...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.

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JAREK

To: Laurie Healey, lhealey@boston.cbs.com, who wrote:

... 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.

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To: Julie Jarocewicz, jarocejl@email.uc.edu, who wrote:

... 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 Jarosl~aw (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 Bialystok (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.

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To: helmut@lancnews.infi.net (elaine and mark), who wrote:

... 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.

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To: Bob Rydzewski, rydzewski@arris.com, who wrote:

... 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 oz*ga (I'm using z* to stand for the z with a dot over it, 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 Oz*ga.

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.

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To: garyjaz@omni.cc.purdue.edu (Gary Jasdzewski), who wrote:

... 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 Jaz*dz*ewski (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 Jaz*dz*ewski. (By the way, the Polish name is spelled with dots over both z's — that’s what the z* is meant to stand for — 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 Jaz*dz*ewski to mean "person from Jaz*dz*ewo or Jaz*dz*ew, 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.

Jaz*dz*ewski refers to a place named Jaz*dz*ew or Jaz*dz*ewo, 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 Jaz*dz*ew or Jaz*dz*ewo or Jaz*dy." 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 Jaz*dz*ew's or Jaz*dz*ewo'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 Jaz*dz*ewski 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 at http://feefhs.org/kana/frg-kana.html, 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 at www.rootsweb.com/~mnpolgs/pgs-mn.html

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To: LMRandGFK@compuserve.com (Lynn Retallack), who wrote:

... 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 -- details and the address are given on my Web page http://www.polishroots.com/surnames_index.htm.

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.

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To: Jadann94@aol.com, who wrote:

... 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.

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To: Jodi Dobrzynski, JDobrz1062@aol.com, who wrote:

... 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 Bal~onek (I'm using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, which sounds like our w). It said it can come from balon, "balloon, circular object," or bal~on, "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 Bal~onek, and there were 113 Polish citizens named Balonek; the vast majority lived in the province of Bielsko-Biala, in far southcentral Poland, southwest of Krakow. 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.

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To: Fred Kapelski, kapelski@wa.net, who wrote:

... 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 eastern 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.

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To: Jan Kapera, polera@winshop.com.au, who wrote:

... 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," koziol~, 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 -- for more info see my surname page http://www.polishroots.org/surnames_index.htm.