To: LUCZYNSKIS@aol.com, who wrote:

...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.

L~uczyn~ski (where L~ is the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our w, and n~ represents the n with an accent over it) probably derives from a place name. There is, for instance, a village named L~uczyna in Wroclaw province -- L~uczyn~ski could very well have started out meaning "person from L~uczyna." L~uczynów 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 l~uczyna, 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 L~uczyn~ski, 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 L~uczyn~ski's living in virtually every province.

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To: Donna Opat, cmopat@webtv.net, who wrote:

...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 Czeck.

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, Bialystok 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, Ostroleka 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.

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

...Thanks very much for the time and effort you put in on replying to my request for information on the surname Olejasz. Your response was extremely interesting and helpful. 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." Gieral~t is one form the German name Gerald took in Polish; "Gieral~tów" or "Gieral~towo" is a name that might logically be given to a place owned or founded by a man named Gieral~t; and Gieral~towski 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 Gieral~tów in Jelenia Gora province, a Gieral~towo in Poznan province, and several Gieral~towice's. As of 1990 there were 617 Polish citizens named Gieral~towski; particularly large numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (150), Bialystok (66), and especially Lomza (247), with just a few scattered here and there in other provinces.

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To: Richard Cudzilo, Troplite423@worldnet.att.net, who wrote:

...I came upon your article in my search for some information reguarding my Surname.Although my mother is from Poland she was not able to give me any hint as to it's origin or meaning.I have in recent months become more and more interested in the meaning and origin.Also if the is a family crest or some family coat of arms.My name is (Rysard)Richard Cudzilo.The original name has a small diaganal line through it,giving it athe letter a WO sound to the last to 2 letters.I some how have come to the conclution that it has a Lithuanian ancestry due to the Jagelloean sounding Lo at the end.

The -ilo ending does sometimes indicate Lithuanian origin, but in this case apparently not -- I checked the best compilation of Lithuanian surnames, and it showed nothing for this or any of the likely spelling variants.

If it is of Slavic origin, then, the name may come from the root cud, as seen in cud, "miracle," cudo, "wonder, marvel," or cudzy, "foreign, not your own." But there's also a rare or dialect root cudzi- meaning "to groom, comb (horses)," and a noun cudzidl~o, "implement for grooming horses, comb." (The symbol l~ is how we represent the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our "w"). I don't have enough information to tell which of these roots applies in the case of this surname -- the suffix -l~o could be added to either. But I will say this: the suffix -l~o tends to show up more on names from eastern Poland and its neighbors to the east, i. e., Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. So I suspect this name comes from that area, and means either "one always marveling at something," "one always doing something unusual or strange," or else "horse groom."

I looked in the 10-volume set Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland, and it shows that as of 1990 there were 549 Polish citizens named Cudzil~o; the largest concentration was in the two provinces of Tarnobrzeg (284) and Zamosc (42), with 20 or fewer living in most other provinces of Poland. Tarnobrzeg and Zamosc are in southeastern Poland, where there is a kind of interaction between Polish and Ukrainian, so that fits in with the whole idea about -l~o.

I wish I had enough information to tell you which of those two roots the name comes from. If I had to make a guess, I'd go with "horse groom," that seems to fit a little better, both semantically and grammatically. But I can't rule out the "marvel, strange" connection.

As for whether your family was noble, I don't have any sources on that. You might try contacting the Polish Nobility Association Foundation, Villa Anneslie, 529 Dunkirk Rd., Anneslie, MD 21212-2014. If I'm not mistaken, they will do an inexpensive search of their library to see if a particular name is mentioned in any of the armorials written on Polish nobility. Other than that, I don't know what to suggest.

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To: Mike Cooper, a0003937@airmail.net, who wrote:

...I have been trying to track down the original name of my gggfather who arrived in the US sometime inthe late 1880's...he was from Warsaw, Poland...as the story goes the name was changed when entering the US to Cooper...I have been told that it was orignially Cooprowski...I'm leaning toward the letter K...any assistance would be greatly appreciated as it will get me going in the general right direction. As of now I'm having a hard time trying to track anything down.

I hope this is a simple case of phonetic spelling, because if his original name in Polish meant "cooper," there are a lot of possibilities. But if he just changed the spelling so that Americans would pronounce it more or less the way it sounded, that's easier. What we'd write as "Cooprowski" would probably be Kuprowski in Polish. The u is pronounced like our "oo," and Poles use K to represent the hard sound of c in "cooper." And it makes fairly good sense that a Pole named Kuprowski would change it to Cooper -- it's a good English name, one Americans would have no problem with, yet it would still sound enough like the original to make it easy for him to answer to.

Kuprowski means basically "person/family from Kuprów or Kuprowo," and those names mean something like "Cyprian's place." I can't find a Kuprów or Kuprowo on my maps, but that probably just means it was (or they were -- there could easily have been more than one) too small to show up, or has since changed its name. As of 1990 there were 190 Poles named Kuprowski, scattered in small numbers over many different provinces; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Koszalin (35), Kraków (24) and Krosno (19), which are all in different parts of the country. So there's no one area you'd go looking for Kuprowski's.

Anyway, from the info you've provided, I'd say Kuprowski is your best bet. I hope this information is some help to you, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

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To: Katheryne L. Lenard, kysalis@earthlink.net, who wrote:

...My grandmother was born 1885-6 in Gdansk. Her name was Katarzyna Snaza / Schnaza / Sznaza. Her brother used the name Snasa. Their mother was Zophia / Sophia Etilma? Filma? The only record that shows her maiden name is difficult to read. The family history and records indicate that they were Polish. I cannot find either of those names associated with Polish descent.

Well, Etilma/Filma has me baffled. I've never run into either one, and neither sounds Polish, if you know what I mean. And as of 1990 there was no one in Poland by either name. Sometimes people give me forms of names and I can tell what the original, correct form was, but I'm drawing a blank on this one.

The spellings of Snaza/Schnaza/Sznaza make more sense than may be evident. Polish often has regional variations in pronunciation, and a common one is the switch between the standard "s" sound of s and the "sh" sound of sz; and Germans write that "sh" sound as sch. So these different spellings aren't irreconcilable; the name was probably Snaza but sometimes pronounced "Shnaza" (which Poles would write "Sznaza" and Germans would write "Schnaza"), or else vice versa. And since Germans often pronounce the "s" as Z, Schnase is another way you might see this name spelled. All these different spellings are just different ways of representing the sound (which would sound like "schnah-zuh" to us) with varying degrees of adaptation to German and Polish phonetic values.

I don't know what the name means, but as of 1990 there were 124 Poles named Sznaza, of whom 37 lived in Elblag province and 70 in Gdansk province. There were 61 Sznaze's, with 31 in Elblag province and 13 in Gdansk province. There were 32 Snaza's, all but one living in Gdansk province. Finally, there were 14 Schnase's (a more German way of spelling the name), 13 of whom lived in Gdansk province. So it's pretty likely either Gdansk province, or Elblag province (just east of Gdansk) is where this family came from.

My source for this data doesn't have further details such as first names and addresses, but there may be a way to get that info. Both the Polish Genealogical Society of America www.pgsa.org and the Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast http://members.aol.com/pgsne2/ have provincial phone directories and will search them for specific names, for a reasonable fee. Phones in private homes are not as common in Poland as here, but chances are decent some relative is listed. That's the only way I know of you might be able to track them down, if your research doesn't reveal the family's ancestral home.

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To: Jill, Evenings9@aol.com, who wrote:

...Hi! I have recently become very interested in my Polish ancestry. I am currently 20 years old, and I am third generation American, still 100% Polish. I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about the name Bugajski. If you have anything to contribute, I'd love to have some input. I don't believe that the name has been altered in any way.

This is a pretty common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 4,919 Polish citizens named Bugajski; they lived all over the country, with particularly large numbers in the provinces of Katowice (447), Kielce (1,107), Kraków (363), and Nowy Sacz (320) -- all in south central Poland. According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut this name comes from the term bugaj, which in standard Polish means "bend in the river," and in dialect also means "bull; big, strong fellow." There are 26 towns and villages named Bugaj, probably so named because they are located on a bend in a river, and in most cases the surname Bugajski probably started as a reference to some connection between a family and one of those places -- they probably lived there, came from there, traveled there often on business, or, if noble, owned land there.

So the good news is, it's a very good Polish name. The bad news is, it's fairly common, so I can't give you any really helpful clues on exactly which of those 26 Bugaj's your family was connected with.

By the way, I'm glad to hear you're interested in your roots at such a young age. Most of the folks I deal with are older, usually retired, and the comment I hear most often is "Oh, how I wish I had gotten started with this when I was younger! I waited too long." You, at least, won't have any regrets about that. I hope you always retain your interest in your family history, and that over a long life you will learn lots and lots about them!

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To: Melanie, ZorakBBQ@aol.com, who wrote:

...Do you have any info on the name Malyszka?

A little -- which is a sort of pun, since this name comes from the root mal-, meaning "small, little." This name appears in Polish records as far back as 1136, so it has been around a long time! In view of the meaning, it probably started as a nickname or by-name, a little like "Tiny" or "Shorty" in English -- which, I suppose, means the original bearer might have been a little guy, or he might have been huge and burly and people called him that out of irony. As of 1990 there were 648 Poles named Mal~yszka (the l~ stands for the Polish slashed l, pronounced like our w); the largest numbers of them lived in the provinces of Kalisz (61) and Poznan (257), but small numbers lived in virtually every other province as well... Similar surnames from the same root and with roughly the same meaning are even more common, for instance: Mal~ysa (790), Maly~ska (1,493), Mal~ysz (2006), Mal~yszko.

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To: Sgt. Michael Bartoszek, Bartsgang1@aol.com, who wrote:

...I'm trying to trace my family roots and i've come up empty on my surname---- Bartoszek, my father was Walter Michael Bartoszek, Jr., and my grandfather was Walter Michael Bartoszek, Sr. he is beleaved to be from the Chicago area. any information that you could give me would be a big help to me.

Bartoszek is basically the Polish name Bartocha with the diminutive suffix -ek added; when such suffixes are added, the final sound of the root often changes, and in this case the guttural ch sound changes to the "sh" sound of sz. So Bartoszek, pronounced roughly "bar-TOE-shek," means "little Bartocha," or "son of Bartocha." This, in turn, is a very old Polish first name, which in some cases probably came from the Polish root barta, "battle-axe," in others from "Bart," a nickname for "Bartholomew" (in Polish Bartlomiej), or even from German Bart, "beard."

As of 1990 there were 5,277 Polish citizens named Bartoszek, so it's a pretty common name. The largest numbers of them lived in the provinces of Kalisz (280), Katowice (1,050), Lublin (509), Lodz (369), Tarnobrzeg (260), and Zamosc (358); so it's most common in the southeastern quarter of the country. But you find people named Bartoszek in virtually every province.

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To: Bob Cartwright, rcartwri@mailhost2.planet.net, who wrote:

...I'm looking for information on my grandparents names: Mary Dudek and Gregory Walec. I'd love to receive any information on either name. They lived in Passaic, New Jersey. Both were born about 1890 in Poland and emigrated here about 1905-10.

Dudek is a very common name in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 49,428 Polish citizens named Dudek, living all over the country. In most cases Dudek comes from the word dudek, the hoopoe (a kind of bird). I'm afraid the word also has been used sometimes to refer to a simpleton, but surnames derived from birds are very common in Poland, so I see no need to assume the name had to be meant negatively. There is also a possible connection with duda, "bagpipes, or a home-bred musician," but in most cases that root applies to names such as Duda, Dudziak, etc. -- Dudek more likely is connected with the bird.

Walec is much less common, as of 1990 there were only 217 Poles by that name. They were scattered in numerous provinces, but the largest numbers showed up in the provinces of Kraków (26) and especially Tarnobrzeg (118) in southern and southeastern Poland. I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

The meaning of Walec is also harder to pin down, because there are several roots it could derive from. There is a term walec that means "barrel, cylinder," and while it's hard to see how such a term could become a name, we see many instances where such terms unquestionably did generate names. Perhaps an ancestor made cylinders, or his shape reminded people of a barrel. The term walec is also a variant of the noun walc, "waltz," so a person who liked to waltz or play at waltzes might possibly end up with such a name. Other plausible connections are with the roots walic~, "to overturn," walczyc~, "to fight, battle," or the first name Walenty (Valentine) -- although the latter connection is more likely with names such as Walek.

I'm sorry I couldn't give you a definitive answer on Walec, but with many names there are several possibilities, and only detailed on-site research can possible establish which one is applicable. So this is the best I can offer. I hope it's some help to you, and I wish you the best of luck with your research.

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To: RCA1006@aol.com, who wrote:

...My sister is the big researcher but i am trying to help her and surprize her!! We are searching for the name Arbaszewski.

Names ending in -ewski usually started as references to places with similar names, because a family lived there, or came from there, or went there often on business -- some sort of connection like that. Thus we'd expect Arbaszewski to have started out meaning "person from Arbaszewo or Arbaszy" or some place with a similar name.

I can only find one place that seems to qualify -- there may be more, because surnames formed centuries ago, and often the places they referred to have since disappeared, or changed their names, or become too small to show up in gazetteers. But there is a village Arbasy or Arbasy Duze ("Big Arbasy"), in Bialystok province in northeastern Poland, 15 km. southwest of the town of Drohiczyn (there is also another village Arbasy Male, "Little Arbasy," very close by, so close that for practical purposes the two can almost be thought of as one). Over the centuries its name has varied, it has also been called Harbasy, Harbasze, etc. It is served by the Roman Catholic parish church in Sledzianów, a few km. away (in other words, that's where people from Arbasy probably went to register births, deaths, marriages, etc.). Its name comes from an ancient Polish first name Harbas, so that it meant "Harbas's place." It's interesting that there was a noble family Harbaszewski from this village mentioned in mid-16th century records, and it's clear that this name often drops the H, so it is possible -- though by no means certain -- that your family might have a link to these noble Harbaszewski's.

As I say, I can find no other place that seems to qualify, so this might be one of those rare instances where you can actually pinpoint a specific area of origin just from the name. That doesn't happen often with Polish names, and I want to stress that it's not 100% certain -- you'd be jumping to conclusions if you assumed this has to be what you're looking for. But the odds seem to me reasonably good that this is the place in Poland where the family comes from. It's worth a look, anyway, especially if the LDS has microfilmed the Sledzianów parish records and you can request them through your nearest LDS Family History Center.

As of 1990 there were 196 Polish citizens named Arbaszewski, with the majority living in the provinces of Warsaw (75), Bialystok (51) and Ostroleka (33), and a few scattered in several other provinces. These three provinces are all in northcentral to northeastern Poland. This distribution suggests a lot of those Arbaszewski's probably do derive their name from that village in Bialystok province; with the Warsaw figures it's hard to say whether those Arbaszewski's came from a different place, or if many of the Arbaszewski's from the Bialystok area tended to migrate toward the capital, which is a phenomenon we see with many other names... I don't have access to further details, such as their first names and addresses, but this may be enough information to help you get off to a good start with the name.

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BADANOWSKI

To: Nili Badanowski, nbadanow@ea.oac.uci.edu, who wrote:

...I have spent years on and off trying to find some information on the origins and/or history of my surname: Badanowski, with no luck at all. I realize that you must be receiving many requests, but if you have any time, I would appreciate any information you can give me. By the way, my family is Jewish, and so I am not sure that this surname is really Polish in origin. In any case, any suggestions would be very helpful for me.

It is wise to mention that the family is Jewish, because very often different circumstances affected the surnames of Polish Jews as opposed to Polish Christians. Jewish names were, generally, established much later, often within the last two centuries, so that we can actually hope to find surviving documents that shed light on their origins and meanings; the names of Polish Christians were usually established much earlier. There are pluses and minuses, either way, but the religion can definitely make a difference in the circumstances affecting the name. In this particular case, I don't believe it does; but it was still a good idea to mention it.

I'm not surprised you have had trouble finding this name: as of 1990 there were only 3 Polish citizens named Badanowski, all living in the province of Warsaw. The source from which I got this information does not give first names or addresses, so I cannot tell you more than this, but it may prove of some value.

Usually names ending in -owski began as references to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name, so that we would expect Badanowski to have meant originally "one from Badanów, Badanowo, Badanowa," something like that. I could find no place in Poland by any such name, but one reference I checked mentioned that Badanów was a variant name by which the village Bogdanowice, in what is now Opole province in southwestern Poland, was once known. In other words, that village's name, which means in effect "the place of Bogdan's sons," was sometimes modified or distorted to Badanów, appearing as such in records from 1845; and people who came from that village or that area at that time might well have ended up with the name Badanowski, meaning "person from Badanów."

Alexander Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland also mentions Badanowski as a Jewish surname deriving from the name of the townlet of Bohdanów in Oszmiana district of Wilno province. I can't find this specific place, but Oszmiana is now Ashmjany or Oshmyany in Belarus (this place would not have been mentioned in my other source because that one covered only places still within the borders of Poland). What this proves is that Badanowski as a surname can derive from the names of at least two different places, far apart, with only one thing in common: they were formed from the old Slavic first name Bogdan/Bohdan (literally "gift of God"). So the surname Badanowski can refer to origin in Bogdanowice in southwestern Poland, or Bohdany in Belarus -- and perhaps more places that don't show up in my sources.

Some of them may be outside Poland -- Badanowski is a Polish spelling, but that doesn't necessarily mean the name had to be of Polish linguistic origin (although personally I think it probably is). Still, a Russian, for instance, named Badanovsky, might sometimes have his name written Badanowski because of German or Polish linguistic influence (since his name would have been originally written in Cyrillic and would have had to be transliterated when he emigrated). As I say, I think the name is of Polish linguistic origin, but I cannot rule out other possibilities.

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To: Gretchen Bakies, gretchen.bakies@mcione.com, who wrote:

..My name is Gretchen Bakies. My family came over from Lubla, Strzyz~ow, Rzeszo~w, Poland between 1910-1913. On both the ships records and my grandfather's baptismal certificate, the name is spelled Bakes (no i). The family was using Bakies by 1917 when my greatgrandfather died in Ohio. My mother recalls a conversation with her father-in-law that at one point the name was originally something like (phonetic) Bakishkowski and that at some point before they came to the USA it was changed. I've looked at your book, but don't know which of several entries would apply: Ba~c, Ba~k (ba~kac~, to mutter), Ba~k (ba~k, bittern, gadfly, error) or Bak (bakac~, to yell, scold). Does the area they were from have any bearing? Do you have suggestions or comments?

I wish I could suggest something, but it's not too common to see a Polish name ending in -es or -ies; Bakes or Bakies just doesn't sound like a native Polish name, and none of my sources mention it. So I have to wonder if it originated in some other language. But I've never run across it before, and as I say, none of my books mention it. I have a good source on Lithuanian names that mentions Bakas and Bakys -- the latter, in particularly, might possibly become Bakes or Bakies in Polish; but the Lithuanian sources aren't sure what it comes from.

In any case, the name does exist in Poland. As of 1990 there were 20 Poles named Bakes (living in the following provinces: Katowice 4, Lodz 4, Walbrzych 5, Wroclaw 7), and 35 named Bakies (Gdansk 4, Lodz 14, Poznan 1, Sieradz 2, Tarnobrzeg 10, Zielona Gora 4). (I have no access to further details such as first names and addresses, unfortunately). It's odd that we find that name exists, but there's no sign of anything like "Bakishkowski" -- the closest is Bakirzyn~ski (20, all living in Olsztyn province). That doesn't prove the name never was shortened from something longer, but we can't help but wonder how reliable that bit of info is... By the way, if the name is Lithuanian in origin, the distribution patterns for Bakes and Bakies don't make too much sense. Lithuanian names don't have to be found only in northeastern Poland, but that is where they tend to be more common.

I'm sorry I couldn't help more, and maybe those figures on name frequency and distribution will help a little. If you'd really like to try every possible source, I'd suggest running this by the staff of the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute in Kraków (the address is on p. 177 of my book, 2nd edition). I doubt they'd charge more than $20, and if they can't help you, I don't know who can. Good luck!

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To: Marie Fletcher, mfletchr@home.com, who wrote:

...I am trying to get more information on the surnames Gall, Bambas. They immigrated from Rogasen, Prussia 1860. I will be happy to reimburse you if needed. I don't know if it matters, but they were Jewish.

It definitely can be relevant that the names you're interested in were borne by Jews. Obviously genealogical research for Polish Jews and Christians overlaps in many respects, but there are a number of factors that can make a big difference, both in regard to what names meant and where records are kept. Jewish surnames, in general, originated much later than those for Christians; in general Polish Christian surnames originated 300-400 years ago, farther back then there are surviving records (except for nobility), whereas most Jews first took surnames less than 200 years ago, and many records do survive from then. Also, Jews generally took names from different sources than Christians, so that the same name can mean something different when borne by Christians and Jews. The religion of the people you're researching can make a big difference, and I always advise folks to make it clear up front what religion their ancestors were -- it can save a lot of time and trouble.

Having said all that, the sad truth is I wasn't able to come up with too much on either name. As of 1990 there was no one in Poland with the name Bambas; I looked at some of the likely spelling variations, and found there were 36 Polish citizens named Ba~bas -- here I'm using a~ to represent the nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it and pronounced like on or, before b or p, like om). There were 26 named Ba~bas~ (s~ stands for an s with an accent mark over it), and 38 named Bombas (38). Any of these names might be related to Bambas when you take Polish phonetics and spelling into account. The people by these names were scattered all over the country, with no real concentration, and none of them lived in Gdansk province, which is where Rogasen is located.

I could find no mention of Bambas in any of my sources, including ones concentrating on Jewish names. The closest match is with the root ba~b-, which means "to strike, hit." Bambas and the other names mentioned above could possibly come from that root, meaning the guy who was always hitting. But that's just an educated guess.

Gall is not a very common name, but at least there are some folks named Gall alive in Poland: as of 1990, there were 268. They were widely scattered, with the largest numbers in the provinces of: Warsaw 42, Elblag 17, Jelenia Gora 20, Wroclaw 15. There were a dozen or less in several other provinces, including 6 in Gdansk province. (I have no access to first names or addresses, I'm afraid this data is all I have).

When borne by Christians this surname tends to come from the Latin first name Gallus, especially in reference to the Irish saint Gallus, who founded a monastery in Switzerland. My books on Jewish surnames suggest that among Jews it more often came from Yiddish gal or German Galle, both meaning "gall, bile." This might be associated with a person who was bitter or spiteful, or perhaps with someone rather pious who found life in this world to be bitter and difficult and thus looked forward to the afterlife.

By the way, I couldn't find Rogasen, or whatever it's called today. I have sources that mention it, and they locate it as very near the town of Koscierzyna (called Berent by the Germans) in what is now Gdansk province. Nearby villages are Nowy Barkoczyn, where Protestant records were kept, and Garczyn, which has a Catholic parish church where Catholic records were kept, and Liniewo (Lienfelde) for civil records. I know Rogasen has to be within a few km. of these places, but it doesn't show up on my maps, unless the Polish name is completely different from the German one (which does happen sometimes).[Added later: I finally found it, it’s Rogozno].

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To: ZFEG66A@prodigy.com (JOEY VAN US), who wrote:

...When you have a moment, could you give me a meaning/background for the following surnames?

Banach is a very common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 12,318 Poles by that name, living all over the country. It comes from a short form of nickname of Benedykt, "Benedict," kind of like "Benny" in English -- Poles loved to take popular first names, drop most of them, and add suffixes, and that's what happened with this, Ban- (from Benedykt) + -ach.

Kempski was the name of 1,004 Poles as of 1990, and another 1,727 spelled it Ke~pski; the e~ stands for the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it, pronounced usually like en but like em before b or p, so that Ke~pski sounds like Kempski, and that's why it can be spelled either way. It comes from the root ke~pa, "cluster of trees," or a place named Ke~pa or Ke~py. There are literally dozens of villages named Ke~pa, so we can't trace it to any one part of Poland -- it could get started anywhere they spoke Polish and had trees.

Krzywonos was the name of 974 Poles as of 1990, and means literally "crooked nose"; the term krzywonos is also the name of a bird, the grosbeak. It's hard to say how often this got started as a name for humans because someone had a crooked nose, and how often it comes from the bird, since bird names yielded many very common names in Polish. The province of Poland with the largest number of Krzywonos's in 1990 was Rzeszów in southeastern Poland, with 183, otherwise it's spread pretty evenly throughout the country.

Kujat is a rarer name, only 128 Poles had this name in 1990, and it comes from the root kuj-, "to forge, hammer." Presumably it started as a name given a smith. The name does not appear to be concentrated in any one part of Poland.

Marczyniec means literally "son of Martin," but that first name is generally spelled Marcin in Polish, so the spelling Marczyn, though pronounced almost the same, is rarer -- as of 1990 there was no one in Poland with the name spelled Marczyniec, but there were 1,344 who spelled the name Marciniec. In older times most folks were illiterate, and variant spellings of names were a dime a dozen, but in this century most Poles have learned to read and write, and the "standardized" spellings of names have taken over. So if you found relatives in Poland, you might find that they now spell the name Marciniec, but in older records the spelling Marczyniec might appear.

With Poremba we're dealing with that nasal vowel e~ again; in 1990 there were 3,036 Poles named Pore~ba, and another 483 who spelled it Poremba. It comes from the term pore~ba, "clearing" in a forest, and presumably began as a reference to where a person lived; there are numerous villages named Pore~ba in Poland. As of 1990 the biggest concentration of Pore~ba's, 966, lived in the southcentral province of Nowy Sacz, and 290 lived in the southeastern province of Tarnow.

...Do you have an idea where in Poland these names may have originated? I know Kempski was from Poznan or Posen.

Your Kempski's may have come from the Poznan region, but most Polish surnames don't give much of a clue as to a specific place of origin, unless they derive from a unique place name (and there are comparatively few of those). I'm afraid none of these, except Pore~ba, is concentrated in any one part of the country; and Pore~ba may be most common in Nowy Sacz and Tarnów provinces, but there's virtually no province where you won't find a pretty good number of Pore~ba's.

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To: Ginka2@aol.com, who wrote:

...I have been trying for some time to get information about the name Bartelak.They came from Posen, Poland in the year 1890 maybe you could give me any information you have about them. If you care to list the name you can do so.

Bartelak means basically "son of Bartholomew." Bartel is a short form or nickname for Bartholomew used by Germans and Poles, and the -ak suffix is a diminutive, so that Bartelak started out more or less as a nickname or by-name meaning "little Bart," probably referring to the son of a fellow named Bartel, which is in turn a form of the name we spell Bartholomew.

I'm a little surprised to see this name isn't all that common in Poland; as of 1990 there were only 179 Bartelak's, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 3, Bydgoszcz 3, Czestochowa 121, Gdansk 1, Gorzów 7, Jelenia Gora 8, Kalisz 1, Katowice 1, Legnica 10, Piotrków 1, Szczecin 5, Walbrzych 1, Wroclaw 17. I would have expected more, and I'm a bit surprised to see there are none in the area of Poznan. (By the way, I don't have access to more details, such as first names and addresses; what I give here is all I have).

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To: RBator@aol.com, who wrote:

...I'm researching Siwek and Bator surnames (for family history purposes). Don't know how rare/common they are. Our ancestors all came from Tarnow province. The former from Ryglice and the latter from Pilsno.

Both are pretty common names. According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut, Bator comes from a Hungarian term meaning "courageous, bold" (cmp. the name of Stefan Batory, in Hungarian Istvan Bathory, a Hungarian who was king of Poland 1576-1586); as of 1990 there were 4,653 Polish citizens by that name. Siwek comes from a root meaning "white, gray" -- siwak means "grey-haired fellow," and siwek is a term sometimes used for a grey horse; as of 1990 there were 11,822 Siwek's in Poland.

Of the 4,653 Bator's, 479 of them lived in Tarnów province, the largest single number; in general, the name is most common in south and southeastern Poland, the territory that was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and called Galicia from the 1800's to 1918. With that link, it's not so odd that a Hungarian name would be common in the region, there are other such names that originated as Hungarian but are reasonably common in Poland. The Siwek's are common all over Poland, there's no particular concentration in any one area.

That's about all I have on these names. I don't have access to any data on first names or addresses for the Bators or Siweks in Tarnów province, only figures on how many by each name live in each province.

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To: Paul Bazydlo, dwsnvl94@ili.net, who wrote:

...I was surfing the net and typied in my last name, your homepage came up and interested me. My last name is Bazydlo, was wondering if you have any information on this name? Was thinking of trying to find out more of my families past in Poland. Any information you can pass along would be greatly appreciated.

The standard form of the name in Polish is Bazydl~o -- l~ is how we represent on-line the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w, so that the name sounds like "bah-ZID-woe" (ZID rhymes with "kid"). Polish expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions the name Bazydl~o in his book on Polish surnames, saying that it is one of a number of names that derive from the first name Bazyli, which is the same as our Basil (from a Greek word meaning "king"). So when the name first originated it probably meant something like "Basil's son."

I don't recall running into this name before, so I was a bit surprised to see it is moderately common in Poland; as of 1990 there were 938 Polish citizens named Bazydl~o. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Lomza (240) and Suwalki (258), both in far northeastern Poland, near the border with Belarus; there were much smaller numbers scattered about in various other provinces, but Lomza and Suwalki provinces are definitely where this name is most concentrated. This is like saying a name is common in two particular states in the U.S. -- it doesn't really pin it down to a small, searchable area, but it is better than nothing. And if it's any consolation, this is more info than most surnames offer; usually I have to tell people there's nothing about the name that narrows the search down at all. Your particular family might have come from one of those other provinces besides Lomza and Suwalki, but chances are good they started out, somewhere along the line, in far northeastern Poland.

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To: DAJ111258@aol.com, who wrote:

...The surname I was hoping you could research for me is Bendyk. My grandfather came from Szaflary, Poland in 1905 and am having trouble getting any information other than where he came from and when.

The surname Bendyk, like many Polish surnames, derives from a first name, in this case, Benedict, in Polish Benedykt. This name was used in a great many different forms in Poland, including Bandyk and Bendyk. So the name means "Benedict," probably referring to the name of a prominent ancestor.

As of 1990 there were 535 Polish citizens named Bendyk. They lived all over Poland, with larger numbers in the provinces of Ciechanów (49), Elblag (101), Gdansk (57), Olsztyn (40), and Torun (90). All these provinces are in northcentral Poland, so that seems to be the area where the name is most common, although, as I said, you run into it all over the country.

I know this information probably is a lot less specific and helpful than you'd like, but I'm afraid that's the way it is with Polish surnames: relatively few of them tell you much. Sometimes you run into one that tells you all kinds of good things, but those are definitely the exception.

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To: Anthony Bielejewski, TonyBo50@aol.com, who wrote:

...I would appreciate any information about the subject surname Bielejewski, (meaning etc.)...

The root from which this name derives ultimately is bial-/biel-, meaning "white," but the surname started out as a reference to some association between a person or family and a specific place with a name like Bielejewo; that's what Bielejewski means, "of, pertaining to, associated with Bielejewo (or a similar name, Bielejewa, etc.)." The name of the place, in turn, comes from the old first name Bielej, which means something like "Whitey" in English, so that Bielejewo means "Whitey's place." There are at least two villages that qualify: Bielejewo in Kalisz province, 10 km. NW of Jarocin; and Bielejewo in Poznan province, 8 km. south of Wronek. In addition, the village of Bielewo in Leszno province was called "Beleyevo" in the late 14th century, so it's possible the surname could have developed in connection with it as well.

As of 1990 there were 308 Polish citizens named Bielejewski; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Pila (114) and Poznan (111) in west central Poland, with a few scatered in other provinces here and there.

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To: Scott Bilicki, 3454xsv@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu, who wrote:

...Hello, my name is Scott Bilicki and as you can tell from the last name by heritage is Polish. I have looked through your list on the internet and did not come across my surname. I was hoping that if you had the time you would be able to tell me more about my surname. The reason I ask for this info is so that I can track the descent of my family all the way back to Poland during WWI. THank you for your time and help.

The name Bilicki is almost certainly a variation of the name Bielecki; in the Slavic languages the basic root bial-/biel- means "white," and in different areas it takes the forms Bel-, Bial-, Biel-, and Bil-. So etymologically speaking Bilicki should be treated as more or less the same as Bielecki. Both most likely started as references to a connection between a person or family and a place with a name like Bielica, Bielice -- there are at least 3 villages named Bielica and 17 named Bielice in Poland alone, to say nothing of other countries that might be relevant (mainly Belarus and Ukraine); so the names Bielecki and Bilicki could develop anywhere people might want to refer to a "person from Bielica/Bielice." Those place names derived from the term bielica, "soft, clayish ground, bog," and that in turn presumably derives from the root meaning "white."

As of 1990 there were some 1,507 Polish citizens named Bilicki, living all over the country, with larger numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (186), Gdansk (82), Konin (67), Lodz (79), Olsztyn (74), Pila (115), Plock (163). This suggests a concentration in the center and northwest quarter of Poland, roughly in areas once ruled by Germans. If I'm not mistaken, German influence might have a little to do with the spelling of the name as Bilicki; in standard Polish the name is more likely to be Bielecki, pronounced "byel-ET-skee," but Germans would tend to turn it more into "bill-IT-ski," Bilicki.

I'm afraid this information isn't likely to be much practical use in tracking a specific Bilicki family -- unfortunately that's generally true of Polish surnames, relatively few have any feature that offers real help in locating exactly where they came from. Still, I hope this is some help to you, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

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To: J Sandoval, xprsolvr@aol.com, who wrote:

...I'm trying to locate information on my Grandparents surnames.....Drebit & Bilsky. From what I've learned, they lived in the village of Kolodribka (near Sinkiv), Zalesciki Region, Ukraine. Any info is appreciated.

I'm afraid my sources on Ukrainian names are far less extensive than on Polish names. I know a little; for instance, Bilsky comes from the Ukrainian form of the Slavic root meaning "white" (in Polish it would be bial- or biel-), so this name began as reference to a place with a name from that root, or perhaps in some cases as a reference to a person's hair or complexion. It would also be a very common name, but unfortunately I have no sources that give statistics on frequency or distribution of this name in Ukraine (it's also fairly common in Poland in the form Bilski, as of 1990 there were 8,355 Polish citizens by that name).

Drebit probably comes from a Slavic root seen in Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish, meaning "small, fine." In Polish drobotac~ means "to walk quickly but with small steps, or to speak quickly but in a wheedling manner." In Ukrainian words with very similar meanings exist, but spelled drib- rather than drob-; it is quite possible, linguistically speaking, that that root could also be spelled dreb-. So I suspect that's what the name ultimately derives from, the root meaning "small, fine, mincing." As of 1990 there were only 5 Polish citizens named Drebit, all living in Olsztyn province, up in northcentral Poland -- that may well be due to post-World War II compulsory relocations that moved vast numbers of Ukrainians to parts of Poland that many ethnic Germans had been deported from. Unfortunately, I don't have access to details such as first names and addresses, so I can't tell you any more about those Drebit's, but perhaps the info will be some use to you.

The best place I know to learn more about Ukraine and Ukrainian customs and names is this Website: www.infoukes.com. If you haven't visited it, I recommend taking a look!

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To: RONJOY@aol.com, who wrote:

...I am interested in knowing the history of the family name Blazek from the town of Grabowa in Szczecinskie.

I have no information on individual families, all I can tell you about is the linguistic origin of the name, and sometimes where the name is most common in Poland these days.

Blazek would be Bl~az*ek in Polish -- I'm using l~ to stand for the Polish slashed l and z* to stand for the z with a dot over it; the name would be pronounced roughly "BWAH-zhek." It originated as a diminutive of the Christian first name Bl~az*ej, the Polish version of the name we called "Blaise," but that name is much rarer in English than Bl~az*ej is in Polish; if you're Catholic and are over 40 you might remember when kids used to go to church to have their throats blessed in the name of "St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr" -- that's who the name is associated with. Bl~az*ek would mean "little Blaise, son of Blaise."

Surnames from Bl~az*ej are pretty common in Poland, e. g. Bl~az*ejczak, Bl~az*ejewski, Bl~az*ewicz, but Bl~az*ek, for some reason, is not all that common; there were only 247 Poles by that name as of 1990. They were scattered all over the country, with larger numbers in the province of Gdansk (60) and Katowice (24). There was only 1 Bl~az*ek in the modern-day province of Szczecin (I have no access on data to first names or addresses, what I'm giving here is all I have), but Szczecin province used to be much larger than it is now, so there may be a few more in areas that used to be part of Szczecin province but no longer are; and there are too many Grabowa's for me to know precisely which one is relevant to your research.

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To: Patrick A. Bohinski, Pat_Boh@prodigy.net, who wrote:

...I was reading your surname information ... on the internet and checked out the surname section looking for my last name, which of course was not listed. I would be interested in knowing the meaning and also if the spelling would be correct. My great-grandfather has his name spelled Bochynski. My son recently returned from Poland after studying at the University of Warsaw and had inquired about the spelling and was told very likely the spelling was Bochinski which is another way our name is shown being spelled in local records. The current spelling is Bohinski. I know that your expertise is in the area of name meanings, but I wonder also if you may know what region of Poland this name may be found if the Bochynski spelling is or was likely.

This is a difficult question, because in fact there are three different spellings that could all apply to the same name: Bochen~ski (n~ stands for the Polish accented n), Bochin~ski, and Bochyn~ski, and I don't see a really clear-cut pattern in their geographical distribution. As of 1990 there were 3,501 Polish citizens named Bochen~ski, 497 named Bochin~ski, and 1,085 named Bochyn~ski. All three spellings appear all over the country. As of 1990 the largest numbers of Bochin~ski's lived in the provinces of Warsaw (128), Gdansk (65), Lomza (66), and Poznan (48), with much smaller numbers in many other provinces. Bochen~ski is common all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (345), Katowice (244), Kraków (213), and Nowy Sacz (245), which suggests it's most common in southcentral Poland and near the capital (many names show a tendency to congregate around Warsaw as well as in areas where they presumably originated). Bochyn~ski is most common in Kalisz (151), Lublin (128), and Poznan (95) provinces. The likely derivation is from the noun bochen, "large loaf of bread," or from place names such as Bochnia (a sizeable town in Tarnów province); the adjectival form of that place name is bochen~ski, which, as a surname, could mean "one from Bochnia," and that seems to be the most common, standard form of the name.

I can't say for sure that all three spellings are variants of the same name, it could be in some cases the spellings match up in some cases with different origins. But it seems pretty certain that Bochen~ski is the standard form and Bochyn~ski is often a variant of that form. By modern rules of Polish orthography Bochin~ski is questionable, Poles avoid using the combination -chi- except in foreign words. The reasons involve linguistic questions that would bore you to death, but I would have expected Bochen~ski and Bochyn~ski to be the most common forms, with Bochin~ski rare. I'm surprised there were 497 people with that spelling, actually. It could be that spelling originated back in the days when the rules weren't quite so strict, or people didn't know them, and that it has stuck for reasons of family tradition.

But going strictly by the rules (which, of course, people have done inconsistently over the course of history), the e sound is the one you'd expect, and in some areas regional pronunciation tendencies might cause that to become the short i sound (as in "sit") spelled as a y in Polish. So Bochen~ski would sound like "bo-HEN-skee," Bochyn~ski would sound like "bo-HIN-skee." Bochin~ski would sound like "bo-HEEN-skee," but as I say, Poles generally avoid putting the long "ee" sound of the letter I after the guttural combination ch, and that's why I think this is the least common spelling.

To make matters worse, the ch and h are pronounced exactly the same in Polish, so in theory you could also see the spellings Bohen~ski, Bohin~ski, and Bohyn~ski. Fortunately for your sake, those spellings are, however, extremely rare in Poland, though obviously Bohinski is familiar to you. Still, I thought I'd mention it in case you ever ran across these other spellings.

Those are my thoughts on the subject. If you'd really like to know more and don't mind spending about $20 or so, there is a group of scholars in Kraków, Poland who are experts on name origins and might be able to shed more light. They can handle correspondence in English (although they prefer Polish), and I've heard from quite a few people who were very pleased with the job they did; they don't do genealogical research, just research on the origins of names. If you're interested, go back to the introductory page.

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To: Alice Gillihan, Alice6731@aol.com, who wrote:

...Any information on the surname Bojanowski available?

Names ending in -owski usually refer to a connection between a person or family and a place with a name ending in -ów or -owo or something similar. In this case you'd expect the name to mean "person from Bojanów or Bojanowo or Bojany" -- those names, in turn, means "Bojan's place" (Bojan is an ancient Polish first name). There are at least 13 villages in Poland with names that qualify, so it's impossible to tell which particular one a given Bojanowski family was associated with. And, as usually happens when there are that many different potential sources for a name, the surname is a common one -- as of 1990 there were 4,264 Polish citizens named Bojanowski, living all over the country.

...Also researching Barna...

None of my sources discuss Barna, so I can't give a definitive source or meaning. The most likely derivations are either as a short form of the first names Bernard or Barnaby or Bronisl~aw -- there is a popular surname Barnas that comes from Bernard, and Barn is a recognized short form of Barnislaw, a Pomeranian version of the common first name Bronisl~aw -- or from the noun barna, which is a variant form of brona, "harrow." One source also mentions barna as a Hungarian word meaning "brown, russet-colored"; there are some names in Poland that turn out to be of Hungarian origin, but without more info it seems far-fetched to connect that to this name. There is nothing that tips the scales in favor of one or another of these derivations, all I can say is that these are possible sources of the name Barna.

As of 1990 there were 521 Polish citizens named Barna; they were scattered all over Poland, with the largest numbers living in the following provinces: Gorzów 57, Koszalin 76, Krosno 32, Legnica 78, Slupsk 42, Zielona Gora 38. In terms of geographical distribution, most of those provinces are in western Poland, the area once ruled by the Germans; that seems to be where the name is most common.

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To: Ilene Frank, ifrank@dudley.lib.usf.edu, who wrote:

...I had a library patron call the Reference Desk today and ask for the meaning of the name Boronczyk. Unfortunately, we have little on Polish surnames. I found your site posted at the PGSA site and promise I'll order a copy of your book for the next interested patron! In the meantime, is there a quick answer to our patron's question? If not, I'll refer him to your webpage.

I doubt there's much on the Webpage that would help with this particular name. The total number of Polish surnames is disputed, but there is no question we are talking at least a hundred thousand, probably many times that. So I haven't gotten to them all on the Webpage -- or in the book either, for that matter! On the page I deal only with those I have been asked about the last few months; in the book I deal with the most common ones. (The distribution curve of Polish surnames is odd: a few thousand account for 90% of the population, and then you have jillions and jillions of really rare ones.)

In surnames the suffix -czyk usually means "son of," so we can state with some confidence that the name means "son of boron." So it's a question of what boron means. Polish phonetics and linguistics suggests it is most likely boron~ (n~ is an on-line way to represent the Polish accented n). One of my sources, Nazwiska Cieszyn~skie [The Surnames of the Cieszyn Region] by Wladyslaw Milerski, Wydawnictwo Energeia, Warszawa, 1996, links it with the root bor, "forest, woods." Milerski says that names with the suffix -on~ are typical of southern Silesia, so that may well be where this name originated. Milerski also says boron~ is a noun meaning "forest-dweller," so it seems probable that Boron~czyk began as one of that class of surnames that refer to the place a person lived or worked; it would be, literally, "son of the forest-dweller."

I can add that as of 1990 there were 365 Polish citizens named Boron~czyk, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Katowice (67), Kielce (49), and Piotrków Trybunalski (47) -- all in southcentral Poland, a little east of Silesia proper -- and smaller numbers scattered in many other provinces. Unfortunately I do not have access to details such as first names, addresses, etc.; what I've given here is all I have.

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To: Doreen Clark, mardore@email.msn.com, who wrote:

...I was hoping that you could tell me something about the name Brack. We had been told it was Brak, but recently found it to be Brack.

Well, the main question is whether it is of Polish or German derivation. From what you say about the spelling, it probably was German, and German surname expert Hans Bahlow said in his Deutsches Namenlexikon that Brack means "tracker dog," or could also derive from the name of the Brack river near the Neckar. But Bahlow also mentions that the root brack can refer to moist, swampy terrain, and Brack could also be a name for a person who lived in such a place.

As of 1990 there were only 3 Polish citizens named Brack (1 in Warsaw province, 2 in Lodz province), but there may have been more once -- millions of ethnic Germans who had lived in Poland relocated to East Germany after World War II, so numbers these days don't necessarily mean much in relation to a century ago.