To: Gloria Fasholz , gloria.fasholz@CellNet.com, who wrote:

… When you have the time, I would appreciate information on any of these names: Ludzia, Latkiewicz, Przewozikowa.

In Latkiewicz the -iewicz suffix means "son of," so what we need to figure out is how to understand Latk-. It was most likely either a first name Latek or Latko, and appears to come from one of two roots lat-: one means "to fly," the other means "summer" or "year." There is also a root l~at-, where l~ stands for the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our W; that root means "patch," so it makes a difference whether the initial L was originally a simple L or the slashed L. In any case, the surname means "son of Latko or Latek or L~atek or L~atko," and that first name could have meant several things. As of 1990 there were 56 Poles named Latkiewicz, and 41 named L~atkiewicz; in both cases they were scattered all over the Poland, with no one area of concentration.

Ludzia is rather rare, as of 1990 there were 44 Poles by that name, living in the provinces of Nowy Sacz (37), Olsztyn (3), and Walbrzych (4). Unfortunately, I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, so what I've given here is all I have. This name could come from the root lud, "people, folk," or it could have started as a short form or nickname of names such as Ludwik (Louis), or of ancient pagan Polish names with that root _lud) as their first element, e. g., Ludomir ("peace" + "people"), etc. To be honest, I think a connection with either Ludwik or one of those Ludo- names is the likely one.

PRZEWOZIK would be the form we're looking for with Przewozikowa -- the -owa suffix is usually one added to the standard form of a surname to indicate that the bearer is a married woman; in other words, Przewozikowa could be translated as "Mrs. Przewozik." The root przewoz- in Polish has to do with transporting or conveying items from one place to another, so it seems likely Przewozik should be interpreted as an occupational name for a carter or waggoner who moved items. This root is seen in moderately common names such as Przewozny (1,977 Poles by that name as of 1990) and Przewoznik (964). In fact, I can't help but wonder if the name you're interested in was originally Przewoznik and the -n- got dropped somewhere along the way. If it was, the name is pretty common and widespread. If, however, Przewozik is right, there were only 15 Poles by that name in 1990, all living in the province of Wloclawek in central Poland.

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To: Virginia Witucke, witucke@aol.com , who wrote:

…My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Linettey. The family used many spellings in this country (Linety, Lenety, Lennety, Lenertej, etc.); only one of my grandmother's seven siblings was male, and he's elusive. On ship records (emigration) and naturalization papers (1874 and 1884), Linettey was used.

Usually with names I can make at least some guess what the derivation is, but this one baffles me. It doesn't sound Polish, but my sources on Lithuanian and German names don't mention it either. It is possible it is a Germanic variant of the first name Leonard or Leonhard -- I've seen cases where a name like that can get changed quite a bit in some German dialects -- but as I say, none of my sources mention it, so that is purely a guess on my part. However, if you've run into the form Lenertej, that kind of strengthens this hypothesis, since Lenart and Lenert are known variants of "Leonard."

If I can't help you with the name's meaning, I can at least assure you that there are Poles by this name. I have a 10-volume directory that lists all the surnames of Polish citizens as of 1990, giving how many lived in Poland and a breakdown by province (but unfortunately no further details such as first names or addresses). As of 1990 there were 2 Linettaj (1 each in Warsaw and Bygdoszcz provinces), 60 Linette's (in these provinces: Bydgoszcz 19, Koszalin 10, Opole 5, Poznan 22, Wroclaw 4), 29 Linettej's (Warsaw 1, Bydgoszcz 13, Gdansk 1, Pila 1, Skierniewice 5, Torun 8), and 100 Linetty's (Bydgoszcz 42, Pila 34, Poznan 18, Torun 6). From the viewpoint of Polish linguistics and orthography, it's a good bet these are all different forms of the same name. Looking at the distribution and frequency, it appears Bydgoszcz province in northwestern Poland is the place this name appears most often. Also, all the provinces mentioned with sizable numbers are in the western part of Poland, the area long ruled by the Germans. So some sort of Germanic linguistic influence is plausible, and again this gives a little support to the idea that this might be a variant from the name Leonard. There are and always have been large numbers of ethnic Germans living in Poland, although after a few generations many came to think of themselves, and be thought of by others, as pure Poles.

So to sum up, the name is not common in Poland, but it does exist in several slightly different spellings, and it is seen mainly in those areas with large German populations and ruled by Germany from roughly 1772 to 1945. There is some reason to think it comes from the first name Leonard or Leonhard -- many, many surnames started as references to "son of so-and-so," so the name may have first been used to refer to the kin of some prominent fellow named Leonard.

If you don't mind spending $20 or so, you might want to try writing to the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute in Krakow. They don't do genealogical research, but for a reasonable fee they will look in their extensive sources and see if they have information on the origins of individual names; and they can handle correspondence in English. If interested, you can read more and get the address from the introductory page http://www.polishroots.org/surnames_index.htm.

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To: Roger Literski, GIVEME9@webtv.net

…I would appreciate any info you may have on Literski. I have traced them back to Lipposch,WestPrussia.

None of my sources mention this name, so I'll have to speculate a little, and there's no guarantee I'm right; but usually when I do this I find out later I was on the right track. So I'll hope I don't mislead you.

There are two main possibilities: that it derives from a German word or name, or that it is Polish. Your tracing the family to West Prussia suggests we can't ignore a German origin. It was not unusual for Germans living in areas with Polish populations to gradually have their names Polonized, so that something like Liter or Lueter (ü or u-umlaut) might eventually become Literski. It's unclear what the German name might have been, but I think Lueter (a variant of Luther) is a distinct possibility, since the Poles would tend to turn that umlaut-u into the "ee" sound they write as i. So going strictly by phonetics and Polish orthography, it's plausible that Literski derived from some form of Luther or Lueter, which come from ancient German roots meaning "fame" or "people" plus the root meaning "army, people."

The other possibility is that it is Polish; if so, the most likely source is the root litera (borrowed from Latin) meaning "letter." This might seem an unlikely name, but until this century most Poles were illiterate, and it wouldn't strike me as odd if a rare individual who could read and write was designated as a man "of letters" -- which is what Literski would mean literally in this context.

Without research by experts who have traced this name back in documents to its origins, I have to go with the explanations that seem most likely to me. If you find strong German roots in your family, the Luether origin might be more likely; if they were ehtnic Poles, the "letter" connection would carry more weight.

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To: Dave Loncki, loncki@itis.com, who wrote:

… I was wondering if you had any information on my last name of Loncki. I have a very small family with few relatives. Thanks for your time.

Loncki is usually a phonetic variant spelling of the name "properly" spelled L~a~cki, where L~ is the Polish L with a slash through it (pronounced like our w) and A~ is the nasal vowel written as an A with a tail under it and pronounced like "own." We often see the L~ written as simple L, especially by non-Poles, and since A~ sounds a lot like ON, it is often spelled that way. So Loncki is probably a variant of L~a~cki, pronounced "WONT-skee." This name comes from the noun l~a~k, "meadow," or from place names from that same root such as L~a~ki, literally "meadows." In some cases it might also come from the verb l~a~czyc~, "to join, unite," or from ancient first names such as L~e~komir -- but I think Loncki or L~a~cki would usually come from the connection with "meadow," either signifying a person who lived near a meadow or one who came from a place named L~a~ki or something similar because of its meadows.

The spelling Loncki is not very Polish, so it's not surprising there was no one living in Poland by that name as of 1990 -- Poles would naturally tend to spell it either L~oncki (47 by that name in 1990) or, more often, L~a~cki (3,343 Poles as of 1990). Such a surname could get started anywhere they spoke Polish and had meadows; and since Poland is basically one large mixture of fields and meadows, it's not surprising that it is common all over the country, with no perceptible pattern to the distribution.

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To: Bonnie Haugen, Genol1@aol.com, who wrote:

… What can you tell me about the Lukaszewski?? I was told it was "high ranking". Nobility maybe. I have a Jacob born 1875. Don't know where for sure. Record said Berlin Germany but he must have been in Poland sometime. Also Gruszczynski?

L~ukaszewski (the L~ stands for the Polish slashed L, pronounced like our w) is like most names ending in -owski or -ewski, which usually began as a reference to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name. Names ending in -ski are adjectives, meaning "of, from, pertaining to X" where X is the first part of the name. We would expect L~ukaszewski to refer to a place with a name like L~ukaszew, L~ukaszewo, L~ukaszów, something like that. If the family was noble, the name was probably that of their estate or a village they owned; if the family was non-noble, the name was probably that of the village they lived in, came from, traveled to, etc. The place names themselves mean "the place of Lucas" (L~ukasz is the Polish form of "Luke" or "Lucas"); so L~ukaszewski can be broken down to L~ukasz- + -ew- + -ski, "one of or from the [place] of Lucas." In some cases it might also just mean "kin of Lucas," but more often it refers to a place.

Unfortunately there are several places in Poland with names that qualify, including L~ukaszów in Legnica province, L~ukaszówka in Chel~m province, L~ukaszewo in Wl~ocl~awek province, and L~ukaszewice in Wrocl~aw province. Most of these are in territory that used to be ruled by the Germans (i. e., northern or western Poland), and as you say, a L~ukaszewski may have ended up in Berlin at some point, but the family wouldn't have gotten that name unless they were of Polish ethnic origin, so at some point the trail should lead back somewhere in Poland. But the surname itself doesn't give us enough information to let us specify which of the places named (or more too small to show up on maps) the surname originally referred to.

L~ukaszewski is a pretty common name, as of 1990 there were 8,690 Polish citizens by this name, living in sizable numbers all over the country.

Gruszczyn~ski is also common, there were 8,918 Poles by that name. The ultimate root is the word gruszka, "pear," but the surname probably comes from a place name such as Gruszczyn (at least 4 of those exist) or Gruszczyno (at least 1) -- which, in turn, would mean "place of the pears or pear-trees." So the surname means "one from Gruszczyn or Gruszczyno" = "one from the place of the pears."

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To: jvmajski@sprynet.com, who wrote:

… I was wondering the origin and meaning of my family name Majkowski. If you have the time I would appreciate a reply. Thank you very much.

The name Majkowski is adjectival in form, and means "of, from, or pertaining to Majek's or Majko's __," where you fill in the blank. In most cases, names ending in -owski refer to a place the family was connected with, where they lived or worked. We'd expect Majkowski to have meant originally "one from Majków or Majkowo (or some place with a similar name)." There are several villages in Poland named Majków, Majki, Majkowo, and all could generate this surname, so we can't pin down which one is the right one for a specific family without fairly detailed info on the family. In other words, I supply you with an idea of the kind of place name that would fit, and you use the data you learn about your family to see if there is a nearby place with that kind of name -- if so, you've probably found the right one.

The basic root of the surname and the place name is maj, "May." People were often named Majek or Majko, perhaps because they were born in May; Majki and Majków and Majkowo, etc., just mean "the place of Majek/Majko"; and as I said, Majkowski is an adjective referring to such a place. It might also, in some cases, refer directly to the first name, meaning in effect "kin of Majek or Majko"; but more often -owski names refer to a place rather than a person.

As of 1990 there were 5,086 Poles named Majkowski, so it's a pretty common name, found all over Poland.

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To: Christine (Mack) HaniscoIn [E-mail address inadvertently omitted], who wrote:

… I was wondering if you know or the origin of the surname Makarewicz. The earliest relatives I know of who came over on a ship are Aloysi (not sure of spelling - might be Aloysius) and Francesca. They ended up residing in the suburbs of Boston, MA.

This surname is fairly simple: -ewicz means "son of," and Makary is a first name (from a Greek word meaning "happy, fortunate"), so the name means "son of Makary." This particular first name is used more in eastern Poland and Belarus and Ukraine, so the Makarewicz'es probably (not necessarily, but probably) came originally from the eastern part of the old Polish Commonwealth. As of 1990 there were 4,484 Polish citizens by this name, living all over the country, so I'm afraid I can't point you toward any more specific region than just "eastern Poland and Belarus and Ukraine." The name just doesn't offer any clues that allow me to say anything more definite.

In Polish the first names of your ancestors would be Alojzy (= English Aloysius) and Franciszka (= English Francesca or Frances).

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To: Ruth Matuch, JMatuch537@aol.com, who wrote:

…I have not been able to find the surname Matuch. Stanley Matuch came to US from Kolbuszowa Rzeszow Poland in Nov 1905. Any help with this name greatly appreciated have been searching for many years with no results in finding any info other than family history.

It's not surprising you're having trouble finding anything about this name -- it is quite rare, even in Poland. As of 1990 there were only 24 Polish citizens named Matuch; 3 of them lived in Wroclaw province, the other 21 lived in Rzeszow province in southeastern Poland. I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, but this data strongly suggests southeastern Poland and western Ukraine is where this name comes from.

Names beginning with Mat- can come from the roots matka, "mother," or matac~, "to swindle," but in most cases they come from abbreviations or nicknames formed from popular first names such as Mateusz ("Matthew") or Maciej or Matyjasz (both "Matthias"). Poles and Ukrainians often formed names by taking the first few letters, dropping the rest (much as we made "Matt" from "Matthew"), then adding suffixes. In fact, there is a known nickname for "Matthew" in Ukrainian, "Matyukha," which is very similar to this surname. So Matuch probably started either in Polish or Ukrainian, and it wouldn't mean much more than "Matt's son."

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To: Mark Miarka, miarka@usit.net, who wrote:

…When you have time, could you please lookup the name of Miarka?

This name appears in records as far back as 1437, and comes from the root miar- or mier-, meaning "measure." There is a term miarka, which is a diminutive of miara, "measure," meaning something like "small measure." As of 1990 there were 1,224 Polish citizens named Miarka, living all over the country but with especially large numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (206), Czestochowa (210) and Katowice (191), which are all in southcentral Poland; so while you encounter the name all over Poland, that part is where it is most common.

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To: Kristine Kujawa, Kristine_Kujawa@qm.salk.edu, who wrote:

…It's me again, Kristine Kujawa. I have additional information on the surname of my Grandmother. Her maiden name was spelled Mentus but she told my aunt that it was originally spelled Mietus and that her father had come from a part of Poland ruled by Germany.

It was almost certainly spelled Mie~tus, where e~ is the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced like "en" -- so it would sound a lot like "Mentus," and that's why it came to be spelled that way. This name comes from a word mie~tus, the burbot, a kind of fish (Lota vulgaris). Surnames from the names of animals and fish are quite common in Poland; this might mean an ancestor caught or sold this fish, or somehow reminded people of it -- all we can know for sure is that there was something about him that made this name seem appropriate.

As of 1990 there were 859 Poles named Mie~tus; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (110), Nowy Sacz (209), and Siedlce (133), but there were people by that name all over the country (I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses). Germany ruled most of northern and western Poland before World War II, so I'm afraid that doesn't narrow it down much.

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To: Clara Milko, cmhocoka@mindspring.com, who wrote:

… I wonder if you have any information on my parents names: Milko and Dabrowski/Dabroski? or the grandmothers - Letwinski/Litwinski and Ruszczyk?

Dabrowski/Dabroski is an extremely common name, as of 1990 there were 92,945 Polish citizens named Da~browski (here I'm using a~ to stand for the Polish nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it, normally pronounced like "own," but before b or p pronounced like "om"). The version without the -w- is less common, but does appear, and is due to the fact that in some areas of Poland they pronounce that W so lightly that it virtually disappears, so spelling it Dabroski makes sense. It's also often spelled Dombrowski/Dombroski because the pronunciation of the nasal vowel makes it sound like that, so it can also be spelled that way -- there were 2,786 Dombrowski's in Poland as of 1990. The surname comes from the term da~browa, "oak grove," so that it means "one from the area of the oak grove," but Da~browa is also any extremely common place name in Poland, so the surname could also be interpreted as meaning "one from Da~browa" -- and as I say, there are literally dozens of places by that name.

Litwin~ski is probably the standard spelling and Letwinski a variant. As of 1990 there were 2,035 Polish citizens named Litwin~ski. The name comes from the term litwin, which means "Lithuanian," so that Litwin~ski means roughly "person from Lithuania, kin of the Lithuanian," something like that.

Milko is a rather rare name, as of 1990 there were 190 Polish citizens named Milko, and another 36 who spelled it Mil~ko (with l~ standing for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w). The largest numbers of Milko's lived in the provinces of Bialystok (37), Jelenia Gora (29), Legnica (21), and Pila (16), in other words, scattered all over the country; the majority of the Mil~ko's (27) lived in Warsaw province. In some cases this name might come directly from the root mil~-, "dear, beloved, nice," but usually it would derive as a short form or nickname for someone with old pagan compound names with that root -mil~_, such as Bogumil~ ("dear to God") or Mil~osl~aw ("one to whom glory is dear"). Mil~ek is a rather common short form of such names, Mil~ko or Milko was less common, but as we see, it did generate the surname in some cases. It probably started as a reference to a prominent member of the family and became a kind of shorthand, "Mil~ko's kin," and thus became a surname.

Ruszczyk is a moderately common name, as of 1990 there were 2,038 Ruszczyk's in Poland. The basic root of the name is probably rusz-, "to move," but it's worth noting that there is a noun ruszczyk meaning "pin-clover, pin-grass, Erodium cicutarium," and many plants and grasses served as the origin of Polish surnames. Finally, the name Rusek or Ruszek is often seen given to a person of Russian or Ruthenian (Ukrainian) origin, and Ruszczyk might sometimes develop from it, meaning "son of the Russian." In a given instance it's impossible to say which of these derivations would prove relevant; for one Ruszczyk family the grass might be the connection, for another it might be Russian or Ukrainian origin, etc.

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To: Richard C Dabrowski, rdabrowski@shakerworkshops.com, who wrote:

… I have several questions about this surname, when you have a moment: 1) What does it mean?

According to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, in most cases names beginning with Mis- or Misi- come from the root mis~, "bear," that is, the animal (I'm using s~ to stand for the Polish accented s). However, such names can also sometimes derive from short forms or nicknames of longer, standard first names, such as Michal~ (Michael) or Mikol~aj (Nicholas) or Mil~osl~aw (no equivalent). Poles often took popular first names, dropped everything but the first syllable or couple of sounds, and added suffixes: this Michal -> Mi- -> Mis- + suffixes, and the same thing could happen with other names beginning with Mi-. It's a little like the way English-speakers formed "Teddy" from "Theodore." So we can't rule out the possibility that in some cases Mis- names derived this way.

The suffix -ewicz or -owicz means "son of," so the standard interpretation of Misiewicz would be "son of the bear," where Mis~, "Bear," was probably a name given a man of great size and strength, and I'd expect it was complimentary. Or if the name derived from those shortened first names I mentioned, then it would mean "son of Mike/Nick/Mil~osl~aw, etc." To be honest, in most cases I really think the "son of the bear" interpretation would prove right most of the time.

2) How common is it? Is it more common in one region than another? (My family came from Mogelnice (near Augustow), in the Province of Suwalki, and they are still living on the same farm from which my great-grandfatheremigrated in the 1870's.

It's fairly common; as of 1990 there were 3,605 Polish citizens named Misiewicz. With those numbers you'd expect it to be encountered all over Poland, and that's true. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Warsaw (249), Bialystok (268), Katowice (171), Suwalki (177), and Wroclaw (296), which is really all over the map. However, the figures for Bialystok and Suwalki provinces suggest northeastern Poland is an area where Misiewicz'es are a bit more common, which fits in more or less with your data.

3) I have been told that the -wicz ending indicates that a person came from the area of northeast Poland and/or Lithuania. Is this true?

That's not really true. The -wicz ending shows up all over Poland, and you can't say "Oh, this ends with -wicz, it must come from the northeastern part of the old Commonwealth." There are just too many jillion -wicz'es in other parts of Poland.

That said, however, there is some justification for the statement. The -owicz/-ewicz suffix originally came into Polish from Belarusian, so geographically there is a link with northeastern Poland. Also, there came a point when many Poles began to feel that -wicz names were old-fashioned and middle-class, and names ending in -owski or just -ski were more elegant; so some changed their names, for example, from Jankowicz to Jankowski, because it sounded a little classier to them. They weren't necesarily trying to fool anyone into thinking they were noble -- that was hard to get away with -- they just liked the sound of the -owski names better. But the folks in northeastern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, etc. have a tendency to be conservative linguistically, and that's an area where you might find people hanging on to the original -wicz forms. The attitude would be "None of this -ski stuff for me, my -wicz name was good enough for my dad and it's good enough for me."

So while -wicz names are hardly exclusive to northeastern Poland, they are somewhat more common there, or at least there's a popular perception that they are. I suspect that's what was meant by the person who told you that. The -wicz is not a reliable indicator of place of origin, but there may be some truth to the observation that northeastern Poland/Lithuania/Belarus has more -wicz'es per capita than other parts of the old Commonwealth. Not having studied any data on this, I can't say for sure whether that's true; but I believe there is a popular notion to that effect, and it may well be based on fact.

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To: Thomas J. Palczynski, PALSKID@aol.com, who wrote:

… Need help for the name of Mockiewicz/Moczkiewicz. Can not find anything about the name. Looked in your book-both of them. Do you have any information about the name?

The -iewicz suffix means "son of," so we're dealing with a name that means either "son of Mocek or Mocko" or "son of Moczek or Moczko." It's tough to nail down exactly which, because in Polish the C and CZ are often used interchangeably, depending on what part of the country you're talking about; and either Mocek or Mocko would become Mockiewicz when the suffix was added (similarly, eiither Moczek or Moczko would become Moczkiewicz). As explained in my book, Mocko probably comes from the root moc, "strength, power, might," and if that's the derivation the name would seem to mean "son of Mocko" = "son of the mighty one." One source also mentions that it might come from German Motz (which Poles would spell Moc), "ram." If it's from mocz-, that root means basically "wetness, moisture," so "son of Moczko" might mean "son of the drinker" or "son of the wet one," something like that.

Neither name is common in Poland these days -- Rymut's compilation shows no citizen of Poland named Moczkiewicz as of 1990, whereas there were only 24 Mockiewicz'es, living in the provinces of Bialystok (5), Bydgoszcz (5), Gdansk (8), Pila (1), and Poznan (5). Oddly, the names Mocek (1,813), Mocko (121) and Moczko (665) are more common.

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

… Do you have any information on the name Motowski?

The ultimate root is probably motac~, "to spool, reel, tangle," but names ending in -owski usually refer to a place name, and that place's name, in turn, would come from that root. We would expect Motowski to mean "person or family from Moty, Motow, Motowo," something like that. I can't find any such places on my maps, but that probably means either that the places in question are too small to appear in my sources, or that they may have changed names in the centuries since the surname was established. As of 1990 there were only 12 Polish citizens named Motowski, 11 of them in Warsaw province, the other in Przemysl province. I have no access to first names or addresses of any of these Motowskis, so I'm afraid that's all the info I can offer.

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To: Michael Munko, mikemunk@aol.com , who wrote:

… I thought I would try and write you with a request to unlock the mystery of my last name- Munko. I've asked many people that I have met who speak a Slavic language if they can tell me what it means without sucess. I am beginning to think maybe it is a foreign name that was Slavicized. (ie. German- Munk, or Munke; or Italian- Munco). Searching the internet I've found Munko in: Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia; also, Denmark, and especially Germany.

Well, it is sometimes difficult to say for sure what origin a name is; a name like Szczebrzeszynski, for instance, is clearly Polish, whereas Munko is a name that could conceivably come into existence in several different languages. The most I can tell you is that there is such a name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 241 Polish citizens named Mun~ko (n~ stands for the accented n), with one big concentration (160 ) in the province of Zielona Gora in western Poland, right on the border with Germany, and just a few living here and there in other provinces. I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, but this suggests the odds are most Polish families named Mun~ko have roots in southern Poland. There were also 20 named Munko without the accent, of whom 13 lived in Walbrzych province, which is in southwestern Poland.

If the name in a given case is of Polish origin, I'm afraid it's not very complimentary (although believe me, I've seen much worse!). According to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, Mun~ko is one of a number of names derived from the term monia or munia -- both forms are seen, and both mean the same thing: "a lazy, stupid fellow." When suffixes such as the diminutive -ko are added to roots, the vowels generally drop off, so Mun~ko would come from munia + -ko to mean something like "the little lazy guy," or "son of the lazy guy." As I say, not overly flattering, but there are many names far worse!

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To: Neil Nakoneczny, nakon@telusplanet.net, who wrote:

… I have always wondered when my grandfather came over from Poland if in the rush to get them through immigration whether they had translated the spelling of my surname properly or not, I have very little information on his side of the family other than a sheet with a reference to when the boat left Poland.. there are no other members of his family that immigrated, this has left a very cold trail to follow, any ideas or thoughts on this?

I don't think your surname got mangled in the immigration process. As of 1990 there were 620 Polish citizens with the name Nakoneczny, and another 2,730 who spelled the name Nakonieczny. For all practical purposes the two are the same name, with just a minor pronunciation difference reflected in the spelling; if you want to get really picky, Nakonieczny is actually the more "correct" spelling, at least in terms of standard Polish. Both come from Polish roots meaning "final, last, located on the end" -- perhaps the name originally applied to people who lived at the end of a road or something like that? Hard to say for sure, but that is the basic meaning of the name.

That's the good news, the name doesn't appear to have been mangled. The bad news is, the name's too widely distributed to offer much in the way of useful leads. It is true that Nakonieczny is especially common in the province of Lublin in southeastern Poland, home to 771 if those 2,730 -- that's the largest single concentration in Poland. But that still means there are plenty of Nakonieczny's living all over the rest of the country. So going by the odds, one might decide Lublin province is the place to start looking. But the odds are not all that favorable.

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To: Frank Nysowy, fnysowy@beaumont.edu, who wrote:

… I read your website and would like to know if you have any information about the name Nizow.

Most likely the basic root of Nizow is niz-, "low, short" (although some names beginning with Niz- might also come from the first name Dionizy, from Greek "Dionysus," which became "Dennis" in English). Nizow would mean basically "of the low, of the lowland," or possibly "[son] of the short one." There is also a word Nizowiec (sometimes seen as Nizak and other variants) meaning "a Cossack from the lowland at the mouth of the Dniepr river." So we're dealing with a name meaning "short fellow" or one meaning "person from the lowland." It's pretty likely that's the basic meaning of the name, it's harder to say exactly what it meant, but must have been connected somehow with "low" or "short."

As of 1990 there was no one in Poland with the name Nizow, so it's possible the name was never all that common in Poland and has since died out; or it might have been a longer name that got shortened when your ancestors emigrated, although I can find no name beginning Nizow- that is common either. Another possibility is that the Nizow's never lived in large numbers in Poland proper (Polish surnames generally don't end in just -ow, usually it's -owski or -owicz or something like that), but could be found in Ukraine, especially near the mouth of the Dniepr -- for centuries Poland ruled that area, to where a person from there might well think of himself, or be thought of, as a Polish citizen, even if he was ehtnically Ukrainian.

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To: Tom Griffin, BCGRIFFIN@aol.com, who wrote:

… My wife has recently become interested in her Polish origins. I have been unable to find any mention of her paternal side, Osielski, or her maternal side, Maurycy, in my initial search. Any help would be appreciated.

The surname Maurycy almost certainly comes from the first name Maurycy, which is a Polish version of the name we know as "Maurice." Usually when first names were used as last names, it was as a reference to a father who was well known in the community, so that "Maurycy" would be a short way of saying "Maurice's kids, Maurice's kin." As of 1990 there were only 58 Poles with Maurycy as a surname, of whom the largest number by far, 38, lived in the southeastern province of Tarnow. (I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses.)

Osielski comes from the word osiel or osiol~, "ass, donkey"; the surname, like all names ending in -ski, is adjectival in form, and originally would have meant simple "of, from, pertaining to a donkey." It may have been uncomplimentary, but I don't think it had to be. Perhaps it was simply a way of referring to people who raised or sold donkeys, worked with them, that kind of thing; or, of course, it may have referred to someone who reminded folks of a donkey by being hard-headed or making a noise like a donkey. It could also have started as a way of referring to someone who came from a place with a similar name, for instance, Osielsko in Bydgoszcz province or Osielec in Nowy Sacz province.

Osielski is not an overly common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were only 151 Osielski's, scattered in small numbers all over the country; the only provinces in which more than 10 Osielski's lived were Bydgoszcz (10), Gdansk (13), Katowice (18), Lublin (11) and Wloclawek (45) -- Wloclawek is in central Poland, Bydgoszcz and Gdansk in the northern to northwestern part, Katowice in the southcentral part, and Lublin in the southeastern part, so the name is really scattered!

So neither of these names is very common, and neither provides much of a lead to help you track a given family down, although with Maurycy it would make sense to focus on the Tarnow area as the likely origin (no guarantees, just a matter of playing the odds). That's not unusual, by the way -- relatively few Polish surnames offer any real help in tracing a particular family's roots.

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To: Jdo2@aol.com, who wrote:

… Fred will the Polish Library in West Bloomfield , Mi. get a copy of your book as well? They are located on Orchard Lake. I was there last week going thru your other book and was sorry to not find my family mentioned in it. I hope we made your new book! Otlewski is the surname.

Well, I have no way of knowing whether that Library will decide to get a copy -- but I hope they will think it's worth getting. For that matter, I can ask the PGSA to send them a free copy, perhaps they'll agree. But in any case, the new book deals only with first names, so it wouldn't have Otlewski in it.

I guess the version of my book you saw was the first edition; the second edition does include Otlewski. The best guess I could make is that this name derives from a place name (as do most names ending in -ewski and -owski), and the most likely candidate is the village now known as Otl~owiec in Elblag province (I'm using L~ to stand for the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our w). This place has also been known as Otl~owo, and if you add the -ski suffix onto that, it would not be unusual for it to change in some cases to Otlewski, as well as Otl~owski; linguistically speaking, it is plausible that both Otlewski and Otl~owski derive from the same name, and this Otl~owiec seems the best candidate I can find (although such names typically developed centuries ago, so these might also have derived from other place names that have since changed or disappeared).

As of 1990 there were 468 Polish citizens named Otlewski; the largest numbers of them lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (200) and Gdansk (71), with much smaller numbers scattered in other provinces. The name Otl~owski was borne by 528 Poles as of 1990, with large numbers in the provinces of Ciechanow (102), Elblag (44), and Ostroleka (144). I'm afraid I have no access to further details such as first names and addresses.

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To: Deidrien Booth, deidrien@bootha.com, who wrote:

… Have you heard of the name Pacholewski? I can't find it any place.

I'm not surprised -- it is a pretty rare name. As of 1990 there were only 23 Pacholewski's in Poland; they lived in the provinces of Warsaw (5), Katowice (2), Koszalin (2), Legnica (3), Lublin (1), Szczecin (1), Walbrzych (3), Wroclaw (1), and Zamosc (5). In other words, they are really scattered all over the country. (I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, what I've given you here is all I have.)

The ultimate root of the name is pachol, "boy, lad," but this surname probably began as a reference to a connection between the family and a place named something like Pachole or Pacholewo. Names ending in -ewski are adjectives, meaning "of or pertaining to __," so the name means "person from Pachole, etc." Those place names, in turn, mean "[place] of the lads." There are at least a couple of villages in Poland this name could refer to (maybe more that are too small to show up in my sources). One is Pachole, a village in Biala Podlaska province (near the eastern border with Belarus); there is also Pacholewo in Poznan province (west central Poland), and Pacholy in Elblag province (north central Poland). Persons coming from any of those villages could end up with the name Pacholewski. With at least three places that could generate this surname, I'm a bit surprised it isn't more common.

That's about all I have on this name. If you have a little luck with your research and get hold of documents that give some clue as to what part of Poland the family came from, you may find you can associate them with one of the places I've mentioned. But the surname itself doesn't give enough clues to let us pick one of them as the likely place of origin. That's not unusual with Polish surnames, by the way -- relatively few offer enough information to let you nail down exactly where they came from.

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To: Adrian Downing, ade@moley1.demon.co.uk, who wrote:

… Could you send me some information on my wifes maiden name of Paciuszko?

I'm afraid I don't have a lot of information on this name. As of 1990 there were only 7 Polish citizens named Paciuszko, all living in the province of Radom (I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses). The name is pronounced more or less like "pah-CHOOSH-ko," and that ending -uszko generally suggests a name is likely to be Ukrainian in origin, which may explain the scarcity of the name in Poland -- my sources deal only with Poland in its modern borders. The name may be more common in Ukraine, but I have no way of checking that. So even though the spelling of the name is by Polish phonetic values, I suspect the name is of Ukrainian origin. This is not at all unusual -- Poland ruled western Ukraine for centuries, and Polish and Ukrainian names have mixed to the extent that it can sometimes be quite difficult telling which a particular surname is, especially since the Polish and Ukrainian languages are pretty similar in the first place.

The origin of the name is probably as a kind of nickname or by-name. Poles and Ukrainians both loved to form new names by taking popular first names, chopping off all but the first couple of sounds, and adding suffixes. So someone might be called Pawel or Pavlo (Paul) or Pakoslaw (an ancient Slavic name meaning "may he gain greater glory"); they'd chop off all but the Pa-; and then start adding suffixes: Pa- + -ci- + -uszko. So the surname Paciuszko probably started out meaning little more than "son of Paul or Pakoslaw" or some other name starting with Pa-.

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To: Walter Palac, palacwr@webtv.net, who wrote:

… Could you tell me anything about my Polish surname—Palac? I believe that originally the l was crossed and the a had a hook beneath it. I am trying to research my polish roots and this is my first step.

The form Pal~ac (l~ being the way we represent the slashed l on-line) is a well-known name -- as of 1990 there were some 954 Poles by this name, living all over the country, with particularly large numbers living in the provinces of Krakow (133) and Rzeszow (110) and Wroclaw (88), which are in southcentral and southeastern Poland. This name seems to come from the term pal~ac, which means "palace"; it presumably referred originally to a person who lived or worked in or near a palace. Also possible is a name Pala~c (where a~ stands for the Polish nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it and pronounced almost like "own"), which would come from the term pala~cy, "burning." This name is quite rare, there was no Pole named Pala~c as of 1990, and only 7 (all living in Lublin province) named Pala~cy.

I could find no listing for Pal~a~c (slash through the l, tail under the second a, pronounced roughly "PAH-wonts"). That doesn't mean the name couldn't exist, but it obviously must have been fairly rare if it did exist; presumably it came from the root pal- meaning "burn, heat," the same root that shows up in Pala~cy. So I can't tell you for sure whether that name existed, or whether the name in your case was Pal~ac or Pala~c, discussed above; just going by the odds, it would seem more likely it was Pal~ac, from the word for "palace." If it was Pal~a~c, I can't find anything on it.

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To: Brendan Brokenshire, bren@nuenergy.demon.co.uk, who wrote:

… Could you please help find information on the surname Paprotny?

According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut, names beginning with Paproc- or Paprot- come from one of two roots: paproc~, "fern," or paprotac~, "to babble." But my 8-volume Polish-language dictionary gives paprotny as an adjective meaning the same thing as paprociany, which means "of ferns, referring to ferns, ferny," so it seems reasonable to say the surname is related to the root for "fern" rather than the verbal root meaning "babble." This surname might have gotten started because a person lived near ferns, or decorated with them, or liked them, or ate them, or sold them -- hard to say exactly what the connection was, the most we can say is that there was some connection to ferns.

As of 1990 there were 1,215 Polish citizens named Paprotny, so it's not a rare name. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Czestochowa (186), Katowice (669) and Opole (60), so the name seems concentrated in southcentral Poland, but there were smaller numbers in many other provinces all over the country. Hoever, Katowice province clearly is worth particular attention, as the place you're most likely to find Paprotny's.

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To: SONNETDK@aol.com, who wrote:

… If you have time to answer, have you ever heard of the following names: Pasterska and Parzysz or Parczyz?

As of 1990 there were 424 Polish citizens named Pasterski (the -ska is just the feminine form, names ending in -ski routinely change to -ska when referring to a female, so names in -ski and -ska can be treated as the same); they were pretty scattered all over Poland, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (55), Bydgoszcz (62), and Gdansk (25) -- many other provinces had fewer than 20. The name comes from the noun pasterz, "shepherd, herdsman" (like Latin pastor).

I've never seen Parczyz, and there was no one in Poland by that name as of 1990, so Parzysz seems more likely to be right. It appears in records as far back as 1385 and is a variant form of Parys, "Paris," as in the name of the capital of France, also the name of a figure in Trojan War. As of 1990 there were only 186 Poles named Parzysz, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Kalisz (86) and Poznan (37). What's odd is that there were 1,083 named Parzyszek, which means "little Paris, son of Paris" -- kind of interesting that the derived form is so much more common than the name it came from!

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To: AMiller694@aol.com, who wrote:

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

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

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

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

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To: Laura Church, lchurch@hankins.com, who wrote:

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

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

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

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

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To: Tami Ramsey, tami@i-plus.net, who wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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To: Edward Cieslak, eddiec@delanet.com, who wrote:

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

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

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To: Joe Porambo, RAMBO518@aol.com, who wrote:

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

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

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To: Carol McNernie, mcnernie@oberon.ark.com, who wrote:

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

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