To: Ludes33@aol.com, who wrote:

… If you could help me with a quick note on the origin of the Luty name. I have run into a stonewall, my Luty side of the family has been deceased for over twenty years, and all the info I have sent away for has not been very helpful. I truly appreciate this, and will contact you again when I have further my geneologic research.

Polish name experts agree that Luty can come from the Polish word luty, which is the Polish name for the month of February. It's not unusual to see names of months used as surnames; perhaps such names began as a way to commemorate when a person was born, or a time of year when he performed some special service... Luty can also come from the root that gives February its Polish name, luty, "severe, bleak" (in other words, it's the "bleak" month); this root also appears in ancient Slavic pagan names such as Lutobor ("one severe in battle"), and sometimes the surname could have begun as a short form or nickname for such names beginning with the root Lut-. So it's hard to pin down exactly what the meaning of the name was originally; but since this form matches that of the month's name exactly, I lean toward thinking the name Luty (as opposed to others beginning with Lut-) probably did start as a reference to the month.

It is not an uncommon name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 2,033 Polish citizens named Luty. They were not concentrated in any one part of the country, you run into the name pretty much everywhere.

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To: Jim Fayette, jfayette@zebra.net, who wrote:

… Im hoping you can help me. My wife and I have been trying to research her family but cant seem to get any where with her family name. Can you tell me anything about the name " Gorzkiewicz"

Names starting with Gor- are a challenge in Polish, because that root has several different meanings, and it can be terribly difficult to straighten the tangle out and figure which one is applicable to a particular name. The root can refer to góra, "mountain, elevation," or it can refer to gorzec~, "to burn," or it can refer to gorzki, "bitter"; it can also appear in old Slavic pagan compound names such as Gorzysl~aw ("one who burns for glory," or "one of burning glory"), because such names were often abbreviated, so that Gorzek or Gorzko could easily have started as a short form or nickname for a fellow with one of those names. So about the best I can do is make an educated guess.

The suffix -ewicz is easy, at least, it means "son of." So we're dealing with a name "son of Gorzk-." I would think this would be the first name Gorzko (or possibly Gorzek), so the name was probably first applied to sons or kin of a man named Gorzko. He might have gotten that name because he had a bitter disposition, but I think it's more likely he had one of those names from the ancient pagan names such as Gorzysl~aw; that's usually the way it works out in these cases, according to the experts. So I believe the surname means "son of Gorzko," with Gorzko being a kind of nickname for Gorzysl~aw or a similar name. If so, the surname is probably pretty old -- a 1394 entry in a legal record mentions a fellow named either Gorzek or Gorzko (the name is Latinized, so it's hard to say for sure which form was meant in Polish).

As of 1990 there were 1,173 Polish citizens named Gorzkiewicz; they lived all over the country, but the largest numbers were in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (81), Kalisz (138), Lodz (351), which are all roughly in central and west central Poland. However, significant numbers people by this name appeared in the other provinces, so we can't really point with any certainty to any particular area and say "Here's where the Gorzkiewicz'es come from." Most likely the name developed independently in many different parts of the country.

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To: David Deput, ddeput@billington-structures.co.uk, who wrote:

… Have you any record of the surname Deput in your listings?

The 10-volume set of surnames used by Polish citizens as of 1990 does have a listing for Deput. There were 125 Poles by that name, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 70, Elblag 7, Gdansk 4, Lublin 1, Olsztyn 28, Pila 2, Przemysl 4, Rzeszow 4, Torun 4, Wroclaw 1. Unfortunately I do not have access to any further data such as first names or addresses.

The name presumably comes from a shortening of the term deputat, "envoy, delegate," which is of Latin origin.

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To: Christopher Wadolowski, BURGRAVE76@aol.com

The material Lucjan Wa~dol~owski sent you consists of excerpts from a Polish armorial by Ignacy Kapica Milewski, citations from old records that mention Wa~dol~owskis of Odrowa~z* arms and of Grabiec arms. The Polish is archaic and would take me quite a while to translate, and I am on deadline right now for several publications, so I can't translate the whole thing. But I can spare a few minutes to summarize some of the entries.

The first section is on Wa~dol~owski's of Odrowa~z* arms. The first notation comes from an entry in 1421, the records of Opoczynsko in Sandomierz district, mentioning a Jan Koniecki, squire of Konskie, who was apparently an ancestor of the next fellow mentioned. The second entry is from 1470 and quotes entries in legal records for the Commonwealth Chancellory, saying a Maciej Koniecki acquired 20 wlokas of the forest called "Wandal~y" and later called "Wa~dol~y," in Wizna district, and founded the village Koniecki Wa~dol~owo, from which his heirs took the name Wa~dol~owski, of Odrowa~z* arms. The 1577 entry is from Lomza city records, and the 1580 from Wizna city records, etc., telling of routine matters where so and so "signed off" [pisze sie] on something.

The second section is a text entry telling some of the history of the Wa~dol~owski's of Odrowa~z* arms, who appear to be the same family, in the same areas, as mentioned above. The last entry -- the one most likely to tell you whether these people are any connection to you -- comes from 1792, and mentions Stanisl~aw z Koniecki-Wa~dol~owa Wa~dol~owski, the son of the married couple Wojciech Wa~dol~owski and his wife Jean nee Karwowski, grandson of Mateusz Wa~dol~owski, City Burgrave of Wizna, swore loyalty to the Wizna district regency.

The final section cites mentions of another Wa~dol~owski group, bearing Grabiec arms. It mentions that in 1413 the Prince of Mazovia confirms a charter whereby Scibor of Sanchocin, whose lands included a section of 10 wloka's lying below Strumkowska Gora [the name of a góra, a hill or mountain] near Lomza called Wandal~owo or Wa~dol~owo, transferred those lands and others to Michal, Andrzej, Stanisl~aw and Chlewietka Draz*ewski, and they settled there and founded the village of Wa~dol~owo, from which they took the name Wa~dol~owski. The subsequent entries mention these people and the heirs of Chlewietka in 1423, 1479, and 1503.

This tells you there were apparently two different noble families named Wa~dol~owski, one named for land near Opoczno in what is now Piotrkow province in central Poland, the other for lands near Lomza in northeastern Poland. You'll have to determine whether either is likely to be any relation to you. If not, this information won't do you any good. But if you find traces of your family near Lomza or Opoczno, this just might help you.

There is a gentleman named David Zincavage <jdz@inr.net > who has a pretty good armorial library, he might be able to tell you more about this family -- if you haven't talked to him (I may have referred you to him earlier). He usually answers questions fairly quickly, so it might be worth your while to get in touch with him and see if he can add anything to this from other armorials.

I hope this is some use to you, and have a great time in Poland!

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To: Sam Polek [E-mail address inadvertently omitted]

… I found out that there were 1227 people as of 1990 in Poland with the name Polek, and was referred to you to inquire where in Poland they live according to their region.

As of 1990 people by this name lived in virtually every province of Poland, so there is no way to point to any specific area and say "That's where your Polek's came from." The distribution does show a definite concentration in southcentral and southeastern Poland, however, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (105), Krakow (129), Rzeszow (71), Tarnobrzeg (224), and Tarnow (301).

That's about the only conclusion we can draw from the data available: Polek's live all over the country, but the largest numbers live in southcentral and especially southeastern Poland (the last three provinces mentioned).

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To: Jon Michael Cates, jmcates@webtv.net,who wrote:

… I was wondering if you have ever came across the surname of Spychalski. I not been able to find any information on this surname except that the Head of State of Poland the late 60s was Marion Spychalski. Hopefully knowing the origins of the name can help.

Probably not, because it's a rather common name. As of 1990 there were 3,511 Poles with this name, living all over the country. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of: Bydgoszcz 559, Gdansk 264, Kalisz 243, Lodz 224, Pila 223, Poznan 241, and Wloclawek 358, with smaller numbers in virtually every province. From that data about the most you can say is that the name tends to be more common in central and western Poland, in the areas formerly ruled by the Germans. Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut says it derives from the term spychac~, "to push, thrust, drive"; the name Spychala is very common (4,747 Poles as of 1990) -- it would mean "one always pushing, driving," and Spychalski would be an adjectival form of that name. This would suggest the surname Spychalski started out meaning something like "kin of Spychala," with that presumably originating as a nickname for someone who was always pushing or trying to get people moving.

I'm sorry I can't give you more detailed information, but for what it's worth, I'd say at least 90% of Polish surnames don't provide any useful clue as to exactly where they originated. Once in a while I can dig up something that proves helpful, but usually the names are too common, or too ambiguous, to really tell us anything useful.

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To: Anne Kronisch, zoedog@snet.net, who wrote:

… Zakrzewski is my maternal grandfathers name. I know he immigrated the the US alone at the age of 15 and was later joined by other family members. I know he was born in Poland prior to 1900 unfortunately my mother cannot remember a town or city. My mother pronounces her maiden name Zachevski. Any help on the origin/translation would be helpful.

This is a very common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 26,210 Poles named Zakrzewski, living all over the country. In Polish it is pronounced roughly "zok-SHEF-skee," and it comes from the roots za-, "past, beyond, on the other side of," + krzew, "bush." So you could interpret it as "the one who lived past the bushes," but in practice it usually refers to a specific village or town named Zakrzew or Zakrzewo, which, in turn, got those names because they were located in a bushy area. The problem is, there's a whole bunch of those, all over Poland -- way too many to allow us to point at any one and say "That's where you came from."

I'm sorry I can't give you more detailed information, but for what it's worth, I'd say at least 90% of Polish surnames don't provide any useful clue as to exactly where they originated. Once in a while I can dig up something that proves helpful, but usually the names are too common, or too ambiguous, to really tell us anything useful.

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To: Becky Patak, patak@dixie-net.com, who wrote:

According to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, Stypa comes from the noun stypa, "funeral banquet," the term for the banquet usually given for mourners after a funeral. Offhand it's unclear exactly how that would come to be a surname -- perhaps it originally was a nickname for someone who always seemed to be giving such banquets, or who gave particularly good ones, or maybe even someone who was always showing up for them (kind of like a professional mourner, or someone always looking to mooch a free meal?). Those are just guesses -- all these centuries after the name started, about all we can be sure of is that it referred to some connection between a person or family and funeral banquets.

As of 1990 there 1,058 Polish citizens named Stypa; they lived all over Poland, but nearly half lived in the province of Katowice (420) in south central Poland -- the rest were scattered all over, with no other province having even 100. I can't imagine why they would be so concentrated in Katowice province, and of course there's no guarantee that's where the family you're interested in came from. But the numbers suggest that might be an area to look at more closely.

Wolcheski is harder because it's unlikely that was the original spelling -- it doesn't look or sound right, and there was no one by that name in Poland as of 1990. Most likely the spelling has been changed to fit English phonetics. If so, I'd guess the original spelling was Wolczewski, except that name is also virtually unheard of in Poland; there were 4 Wolczewski's, all living in Krakow province, and 5 who spelled it with the L with a slash through it, living in the provinces of Gdansk (2), Gorzow (1), Olsztyn (1), and Ostroleka (1). It's possible those are the people you're looking for (unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses). However, it's also possible the original form of the name was something else, not obvious. So if your research turns up any other spellings -- perhaps Wloczewski or Wlochowski, there are several possibilities -- get back to me and I'll see if I can tell you anything about them.

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To: Peter Drazba, peter2@flash.net, who wrote:

… I am looking for information on the name Drazba. I would appreciate any information you could give me.

I've never run into this name before, but it's not all that rare: as of 1990 there were 386 Polish citizens named Draz*ba (I'm using z* to stand for the Polish z with a dot over it, pronounced like the "s" in "pleasure"). The vast majority, 267, lived in the province of Suwalki in northeastern Poland, with tiny numbers scattered in numerous other provinces. That makes me wonder if the name might be of either Lithuanian or Belarusian origin -- but I have a pretty good source on Lithuanian names, and while it says there are a few people by this name in Lithuania, it offers no meaning. So this suggests the name may be Belarusian, and unfortunately I have very little on names in that language.

A massive 8-volume Polish-language dictionary does mention draz*ba as a dialect variant of the word draszka, "threshing, payment for threshing" (ultimately from German dreschen, "to thresh"). So this probably started as a name for an agricultural laborer who did threshing for a living. I can't be positive, because none of my name sources specifically mentions this; but it does seem pretty likely, and it makes sense.

So I think we're on fairly safe ground if we say this name comes from northeastern Poland, possibly also Lithuania and what is now Belarus (all of which used to be part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), and was an occupational name for a thresher.

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To: Tom Goralewicz, goraltom@crossnet.org, who wrote:

… My problem is that I cannot find any history on my surname (my grandfather, Alexander (Alexius on his Baptismal Certificate) Goralewicz, may have been an only child and an orphan. His Birth Certificate says he was born on March 28, 1877 in Zalczoiwie, District of Rohetyn, in Galicia, and was baptized at St. Michael Greek Catholic Church. His father's name was Onaphren Goralewicz, and his mother was Maria Langorski

The Polish form of your surname would be Góralewicz, pronounced roughly "goo-raw-LAY-vich." The -ewicz suffix means "son of," and góral is a Polish word meaning "mountain men," so the surname means "son of the mountain man." Specifically, the góral usually refers to people living in the Carpathian mountains in southeastern Poland, western Ukraine, and eastern Slovakia -- they are thought of as colorful people with their own customs, dances, clothes, and dialect. So your grandfather's name suggests origins somewhere in that area, much as you thought. There are various sources of info on the górale -- you might find some at the Website www.infoukes.com, and I remember seeing mention of a book on góral customs somewhere, though I can't find it right now -- maybe a Web search would find it for you. You might also want to look for info at the Culture/Customs on this site.... In any case, the name Góralewicz is not all that common in Poland these days, as of 1990 there were only 185, scattered all over the country but with a slight concentration in the provinces of Przemysl (57) in southeastern Poland and Wroclaw (30) in southwestern Poland. The numbers in Przemysl and Wroclaw provinces make sense geographically, as both areas are rather mountainous; also, the Wroclaw numbers might be influenced by post-World War II forced relocations of millions of Ukrainians from southeastern Poland and western Ukraine to the territories taken from Germany and incorporated into Western Poland... I don't have data for Ukraine, it may be that Góralewicz'es are fairly common there; also, I don't have access to further details on where the Góralewicz'es lived in Poland, such as first names and addresses, I only have a breakdown by province.

By the way, to be strictly accurate, your grandfather's original name was not Alexander but Alexy = Alexius in Latin. The names come from the same Greek root, and are often confused, but they aren't really the same name. I don't know what "Zalczoiwie" is, that's clearly misspelled, but the district name was Rohatyn. His father's name was probably Onufry (in Latin Onuphrius), a first name more common in Galicia than in Poland proper.

Langorski is a problem -- as of 1990 there was no one in Poland by that name, I have never run across it before, and it's in none of my sources. It might be a name more common among Ukrainians than Poles, but I can't help wondering if it's been misspelled. For instance, in some records r and w can be hard to distinguish, and Langowski is a common name. Or we might be dealing with Polish nasal vowels that can end up being spelled several ways. The bottom line is, I don't have anything on it -- but if you ever run across records where it's spelled differently, let me know and I'll see if I can find anything on it.

… My grandfather married Maria Ilcewicz (or Milewicz) in NYC in 1906, and it was supposedly a family joke that they were from two different "classes", and could never have married in Poland. I think her family was wealthy landowners and lived in an area that today is part of Russia, while my grandfather lived in the far south (near the Goral Mountains?), and had served in Franz Joseph's army before coming to the US in 1902.

All that is plausible enough, but it's tough analyzing names if you're not sure what the correct form was. Milewicz is a moderately common name (1,334 Poles by that name in 1990), meaning "son of Mil-," where the latter is probably a short form of a longer first name in which the first part is the root mil-, "dear, loved, nice." As of 1990 there were 223 Poles named Ilcewicz (no particular concentration in any one part of Poland), and 157 named Ilewicz. Both would mean "son of" something, but again, the question is, was the name Ilcewicz or Ilewicz? In either case, the name probably means "son of Ilya" -- that's a Ukrainian form of the name Elijah or Elias.

I hope you can find further records that will clear up the spellings of some of these names of people and places, because some of them are clearly distorted (Zalczoiwie, for instance, is definitely not correct for Polish or Ukrainian). It will help a lot if you have correct spellings to deal with. Unfortunately, with Eastern European research, getting the right spelling can be half the battle! These names were often mutilated unintentionally when folks emigrated.

I only charge for name analysis if I do the most thorough job I can, checking every source I can think of. When I do a "quick and dirty" analysis, as in this case, the research only takes a few minutes and I don't see any need to charge for it. In most cases I wouldn't come up with more even if I spent several hours on it, and I think this is such a case. So there's no charge for this info.

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To: Anthony Lamczyk, P1763@MIDWEST.NET, who wrote:

… My father's full name was Raymond C. Lamczyk, and he lived his life in the town of Radom, in the southern part of Illinois. . . my mother's maiden name is Czerniejewski, her full name being Florence L. Czerniejewski. . .Ii know absolutely nothing about if and when the Lamczyk name was shortened, changed, etc.

This name is hard to pin down, none of my sources mention it specifically, and there are a couple of different ways it could have developed, theoretically. I will say this, there is no reason to assume it was changed or shortened -- the name Lamczyk was borne by 508 Polish citizens as of the year 1990, so it's a perfectly good name. The Lamczyk's lived all over Poland, with larger numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (87), Gdansk (59), Katowice (81), Kielce (98), and smaller numbers scattered in numerous other provinces (unfortunately, I have no access to further details such as first names or addresses). It's interesting that the name is more common in areas once ruled by the Germans, where German language and names tend to show up often, so we can't rule out some German connection.

The suffix -czyk in surnames usually means "son of," so the question is, what does Lam- or Lamc- mean? There are several possibilities. The name Lamm exists among Germans, from the German word for "lamb," and we can't rule out the possibility that this meant "son of Lamm," perhaps referring to a shepherd or a man who had that name because he reminded people of a lamb or was somehow associated with lambs. It could also derive from a shortened version of a first name, perhaps Lambert; Poles often formed short names or nicknames from first names by taking the first few sounds, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes, so that "son of Lam[bert]" is plausible. The root lam- also shows up in a verb lamowac~, "to trim," that is, "edge, pipe, add a border"; it seems somewhat unlikely that this surname might refer to the son of a fellow who added borders or piping to clothes, etc., but it's not out of the question.

If the name was originally L~amczyk -- I'm using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w, but often left simply as l when Poles emigrated -- it could mean "son of a l~amacz," a person who broke or crushed stone for a living. The problem with that is, the named L~amczyk is virtually unknown in Poland these days, so the odds are we're dealing with Lamczyk, which is a moderately common name.

On the whole, with no firm data to base my analysis on, I would tend to think either "son of Lamm" or "son of Lambert" is the most likely derivation. But I can't be certain.

If you'd really like to know, you might contact the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute in Krakow. They don't do genealogical research, only research on the origins of names. They charge US$10-20 for analysis of a name, and they can correspond in English. If you're interested, read more and get the address from this Webpage: http://www.polishroots.org/surnames_index.htm

Czerniejewski is a name meaning "person from Czerniejew or Czerniejewo or Czerniejow," and there are several Polish villages by those names, so without further info on the family we can't say which of those villages the name originally referred to in your family's case. It's a fairly common surname, as of 1990 there were 1,616 Poles named Czerniejewski, living all over the country.

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To: Steve Bogdanski, gbog@tir.com, who wrote:

… I was wondering if you could give me any information on my surname, it is "Bogdanski"? I know some history behind the name, but not much any help would be appreciated.

I'm afraid I can't give you much detailed information, because this is one of many Polish surnames that derive from popular first names, and such surnames tend to be very common and distributed all over Poland, since by their very nature they could develop almost anywhere. Thus in 1990 there were 5,543 Polish citizens named Bogdan~ski (n~ stands for the accented n). The surname comes from the first name Bogdan, which is a Slavic compound name meaning literally "God-given" (a Slavic equivalent to Hebrew Nathaniel, Greek Theodoros, etc.). Bogdan~ski means literally "of, pertaining to Bogdan," and thus might have originated as a term for "kin of Bogdan," or "person from Bogdanka or Bogdanki [Bogdan's place]," etc. There are several villages by those names, so even if we assume the surname referred to a place rather than just meaning "Bogdan's kin" -- and that's probably not a justifiable assumption, in most cases "Bogdan's kin" probably was the original meaning -- it still doesn't narrow things down much.

With that many Bogdan~ski's, it seems likely the name developed independently in many different places at different times, so there isn't one big Bogdan~ski family, but rather many different ones, and they could have come from anywhere in Poland.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but if it's any help, that's the way it is with, oh, at least 90% of Polish surnames. They just aren't unique enough to offer any really useful leads. Folks often hope I can give them some info based on the name that will help lead them to the place of origin in Poland; I wish it worked that way, but it seldom does.

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To: Jack Haze, Hazay19@aol.com, who wrote:

… I am the only person in my family that knows how to use the Internet. I am the first generation that was born in the United States. I am 17 years old from troy michigan and want to desperately find my ancestors and family tree. I cannot use a program from the store since my mom and Dad are born in Poland and I am afraid that a lot of the records were lost in the War.

First off, I don't do research; I have all I can do translating records and editing and typesetting various publications. But I can suggest some organizations that might be able to help you quite a bit with your questions.

I would strongly advise you to visit the Website of the Polish Genealogical Society of America at <www.pgsa.org>. There's a lot of free info on there that can help beginners. The PGSA also has a handout on genealogy software -- I'm not sure whether it's on the Website, but you could look. If it's not, I'm sure you could buy a copy for a few dollars; I believe it's also included in the packet of info people get for free when they join the PGSA.

Another organization that might be able to help you a lot is the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan. They're not really on the Internet yet, but you can write them at this address:

PGS-MI
c/o Burton Historical Collection
Detroit Public Library
5201 Woodward Ave.
Detroit, MI 48202-4007

With your family's Michigan roots, PGS-MI might really be able to help you find some excellent leads; you might want to consider joining -- I think their dues are either $15 or $20 a year -- and since they specialize in Poles who settled in Michigan, they're probably your best bet for making valuable connections.

There is also a book you might want to look for at a library or bookstore. It's by Rosemary Chorzempa, and it's called "Polish Roots," 1993, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore MD, ISBN 0-8063-1378-1. Many, many people have told me it helped them enormously when they were getting started, and it's relatively easy to find -- the Barnes & Noble just up the road from my house sells it. I believe it's $20 or less, and lots of folks swear by it.

The reason I'm giving you this info is because surnames, in themselves, very rarely offer any real help with tracing a family. They're just too common. Thus as of 1990 there were 1,012 Polish citizens named Kol~ton, and another 2,689 used the variant Kol~tun. It comes from a root kol~ton meaning "twisted hair, shaggy hair." Obviously this is a name that could develop independently in many different places all over Poland. Knowing what it means is nice, but doesn't do a thing in terms of helping you find your ancestors.

Other names, such as Bazin~ski, are not so common, but don't really help a lot either. As of 1990 there were 113 Polish citizens named Bazin~ski, but they were scattered all over the country, with larger numbers in the provinces of Bielsk-Biala (25) in southcentral Poland, and Tarnobrzeg (37) in southeastern Poland, and a few here and there in many other provinces. (I don't have access to further data such as first names and addresses, what I've given here is all I have). Polish name experts believe the name comes from the first name Bazyli = English Basil; Poles often formed names by taking the first part of a popular first name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes, thus Baz- + -in- + -ski. This means nothing more than "kin of Basil," or "person from Basil's place."

Hejza is not listed in any of my sources, so I don't know what it comes from. As of 1990 there were 123 Polish citizens by that name, again scattered all over, with larger numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (32), Slupsk (20), and Wloclawek (23) -- which means it appears mainly in northcentral and northwestern Poland. That suggests it might be of German origin, since a great many Germans have lived in that part of Poland, and if so, it probably comes from German Heise, which originated as a nickname for "Heinrich" = English "Henry."

As I say, this is how it goes with the vast majority of Polish surnames -- it's nice to know what they mean, but they don't provide much in the way of real help. And that's why I think the information you can get from the sources I mentioned is your best bet. Or, if you can afford it, you might hire a researcher who specializes in Poland; but that gets expensive, and you can do a lot of that yourself, with a little assistance from the PGSA, the PGS-MI, and Chorzempa's book.

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To: Marsha Hudren, Hudmar@webtv.net, who wrote:

… After reading your response & explanation of "Jankowski", I am hopful that you will be kind & help me with my maternal surnames. In searching Skarpiak I have come to a dead end. The brothers Skarpiak appeared to all have daughters & I am only aware of two decendants still living (which again are females), Would you be able to provide additional info re family name(s)?

Skarpiak appears to be a very rare name. None of my sources mention it, and as of 1990 there was no one in Poland by that name, or named Szkarpiak (Polish names beginning with S- often have variants beginning with Sz-, and vice versa). It might possibly come from the term skarpa, "buttress, escarpment" -- if so, it probably means something like "one who lived near the buttress, one who worked on the buttress," or else the son of such a person.

The only mention I could find of such a name anywhere was in the Index to Obituaries in the Polish-language Chicago daily Dziennik Chicagoski. There was an obit for a Walenty (Valentine) Szkarpiak who died 30 Apr 1928 in the Chicago area, in the 3 May 1928 issue of that paper. Also, a Franciszek (Francis or Frank) Szkarpiak was mentioned in two other obits for people named Szymanska. If this sounds like a possible lead, I'd suggest going to the Website of the Polish Genealogical Society of America, www.pgsa.org, and searching their Chicagoski and other databases for Skarpiak or Szkarpiak. If the name is all that rare, there is a chance these folks might be related to you, and searching those databases might turn up some leads (if these aren't people you already know about).

If you don't mind spending $10-20 to learn more, you might try writing the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Insitute in Krakow -- they don't do genealogical research, only research on name origins, and they can correspond in English. For more details, see the introduction to Polish surnames at http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_index.htm.

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To: Carl Krepshaw, Joycekshaw@aol.com, :

… As far as I know, it was Boleslaw Krcipczio, altho his immigration papers showed it as Krejpcio, The latter is what I used when I was in grade school. It is now spelled Krepshaw. The passenger list indicates he was from Biala Wala, Russia. I guess that is/was a Polish province taken over by Russia. He immigrated to Phila., PA.

Well, there are so many Polish surnames that it's tough to say anything definitive about them if you don't have a correct spelling -- and Krcipczio makes no sense phonetically or linguistically, it's surely a misreading or misspelling somewhere along the line. However, there is a name Krejpcio which might fit -- it's close to some of the variant spellings you gave, and would be pronounced roughly "CRAPE-cho" (rhymes with "scrape-snow"), which could easily become Krepshaw in America. I can't be certain that's the right name, but it's close enough to be worth mentioning.

As of 1990 there were 172 Polish citizens by that name, of whom the vast majority (141) lived in the province of Suwalki, in northeastern Poland, on the border with Lithuania. And Krejpcio is almost certainly Lithuanian in terms of linguistic origin. It appears to come from the Lithuanian word kreipti, "to turn, make crooked." I would suppose the name might have referred originally to someone who had something crooked about him -- not meaning he was a crook, but rather that he had a crooked leg or back or something like that. We see a lot of Polonized forms of Lithuanian names near the border, so that makes sense in terms of what you said. The area was originally Polish, but was taken over by Russia in the 1800's. And vast numbers of Polish-Lithuanian immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, so that fits too.

… His papers also had last spelled as ....Krepcio, Krepshio. I cannot find Biala, Wala anywhere on a map that I have. Can you help me??? This info. is necessary, as I want to find his birth certificate so I can find out who his parents were.

Place names with bial- in them are very common -- the root just means "white." Biala Wala doesn't seem right, but Biala Wola could well work. There could be quite a few little villages or communities by that name, but I notice there is at least one on the map, a little village called Bial~a Wola (the l~ stands for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w) in the extreme northern part of what is now the province of Olsztyn. This is some distance west of Suwalki province, but not so far as to be implausible -- and it is still quite near the border with Lithuania. So geographically speaking, it fits -- it was in the Russian partition, and it's close to Lithuania. I can't guarantee it's right, but I think the chances are good enough to make it worth a look... If it doesn't pan out, I'd try "Biala Woda" (literally "white water"), but I'd try Biala Wola, Olsztyn province, first. The only problem is, my sources list no Krejpcio's in Olsztyn province, so if they did live there once, they seem to have moved or died out. But some of the Krejpcio's in Suwalki province may well be relatives.

To find birth certificates, you need the parish church that served the community in question. I can't find anything that says for sure which parish serves Bial~a Wola, but on the map it appears Lubomino is the closest -- it's only a few kilometers away, that probably is where folks in Bial~a Wola would go to register births, deaths, and marriages. I don't know if the LDS Family History Library has microfilmed the records for Lubomino parish, but I'd suggest going to the nearest Mormon Family History Center and seeing if those records are on file. If they are, you can have them loaned from Salt Lake City to your FHC and can look through them there -- much faster and cheaper than writing to Poland. If it turns out the records you need aren't available through the FHL, then you may have to write the parish in Poland, or the Polish National Archives.

As I say, there are too many variables here for me to be sure I'm right. But if I were you, I'd try looking for a family named Krejpcio living in or near Bial~a Wola, Olsztyn province, probably served by Lubomino Catholic parish.

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To: Oliver Bryk, obryk@flash.netdex.com, who wrote:

… is the name Bryk covered in your book? I'm interested in its etymology. In your opinion, is it common for a surname, such as Bryk, to be found in Jewish as well as Catholic families (predominantly the latter, I think)?

Bryk is mentioned in the book, although with 30,000 names in 400 pages, you can imagine I don't have room to give a whole lot of detail on any one them... Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut says Bryk can come from two roots: from the old Latin first name Brictius, which was used more often in Poland centuries ago (it's almost unheard of today) in forms such as Brykcy and Brykcjusz; or from the verb root brykac~, "to frisk, gambol." The form Bryka shows up in documents as early as 1397. Personally, I suspect Bryk derives in most cases from the first name -- surnames derived from first names are very common in Polish, and the Poles often took the first part of a name, dropped the rest, and used that first part as a new name or nickname, often adding suffixes.

Now what I just said applies mainly to Polish Christians. Alexander Beider's book on surnames of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland (the part under Russian rule roughly 1772-1918) does mention Bryk as a surname borne by Jews, especially in the areas of Makow, Zamosc, Bilgoraj, Stopnica, and Warsaw. He says this name, when used by Jews, usually comes either from Yiddish brik, "bridge" (compare German Bruecke) or from an acronym of Ben Rabiy Yaqoyv Qopl, "the son of Rabbi Jacob Koppel"... By the way, it is not at all unusual to find that Christians and Jews have names that look exactly the same but had different derivations. So among Christians the derivation would probably be from the first name Brykcy/Brictius or the verb meaning "frisk, gambol." But for Jews it would come from the usages I just described.

As of 1990 there were 3,278 Polish citizens named Bryk, so it's a moderately common surname. The bryk's were distributed fairly evenly over the country, with a slight concentration in southeastern Poland.

I imagine most of those Bryk's are Christians, simply because the Jewish community was utterly devastated by the Nazis, and you find very tiny numbers for most distinctively Jewish names. But when dealing with families who emigrated before World War II, the name could easily be either Christian or Jewish.

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To: Peter Radziszewski, Peter.Radziszewski@uqat.uquebec.ca, who wrote:

… I have long wondered on the meaning of my family name: Radziszewski. Would you have any information on its origins & meaning ?

Names ending in -owski and -ewski usually began as a reference to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name, generally ending in -ow/-owo or -ew/ewo. So we'd expect Radziszewski to have started out meaning simply "one from Radiszew/o or Radiszow/o." There are at least two places this surname could have derived from, and perhaps more, too small to show up in my sources (or they may have changed their names over the centuries since the surname was established). There is a Radziszow in Krakow province, maybe about 20 km. south-southeast of Krakow; and there are villages named Radziszewo-Krole and Radziszewo-Sienczuch in southeastern Lomza province. People from any of these places (and, as I say, possibly more) could have ended up with the name Radziszewski... The names of these places mean, in effect, "the [place] of Radzisz" -- Radzisz is an old Polish first name appearing in documents as early as 1414, coming either from a root meaning "joy" or from a root meaning "advise." Most likely it started as a nickname or short form for a longer compound name such as Radomir ("glad of peace") or Radosl~aw "glad of fame"), or it could have meant "the adviser" or "the joyful one." At any rate, somewhere along the line a little settlement or village founded or owned by a guy named Radzisz could easily end up being called Radziszów or Radziszewo, both meaning "Radzisz's place"; then later a person connected to that place could be called Radziszewski = "one from Radziszewo" = "one from the place of Radzisz."

This is a fairly common surname, as of 1990 there were 4,982 Polish citizens named Radziszewski. They lived all over the country, with especially large numbers in the provinces of Bialystok (1,087) in the northeast; Katowice (228) in southcentral Poland; Lomza (208) in northeastern Poland; and Warsaw (462) in east central Poland. It's conceivable all these Radziszewski's might have gotten their names from the three villages I mentioned above, but it seems just a little far-fetched, which is why I think there may once have been more places with names that could generate this surname.

For what it's worth, this is how it goes with the vast majority of Polish surnames -- very few offer really helpful clues with exactly where a given family came from. Usually about the most you can hope for is a reasonable idea of what the name meant when it originated; I'd say about 90-95% there is no link with any specific area, at least nothing precise enough to give you a good lead.

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To: Steve Tolodxi, Stolodxi@aol.com, who wrote:

… My new cousin and i are looking for surname of Tolodziecki, or Tulodziecki. She found it on the wall of honor. my name has changed from what my dad's was on birth and his father's birth. so we are having fun looking to see how it all comes together

The first question is the original form of the name. I have a 10-volume set that lists all the surnames of Polish citizens as of 1990 and tells how many lived in each province (but unfortunately does not give further data such as first names or addresses), so I looked up both spellings and got these results (l~ stands for the Polish l; with a slash through it, pronounced like our w):

Tol~odziecki, total 121; provinces with 10 or more: Koszalin 18, Legnica 10, Torun 48; there were a few other provinces with fewer than 10.

Tul~odziecki, total 747; provinces with 50+: Warsaw 57, Bydgoszcz 57, Ciechanow 101, Olsztyn 71, Torun 141, Wloclawek 108; numerous other provinces with smaller numbers.

So this suggests both forms are "correct," but Tul~odziecki is probably the standard form, and Tol~odziecki a variant spelling of that, based perhaps on regional variation in pronunciation. Also, the names are most common in northern and northwestern Poland, in areas formerly ruled by the Germans, mainly East and West Prussia.

Names ending in -cki or -ski, more often than not, referred originally to a connection between a person or family and the name of a place -- we'd expect the place or places to be something like Tul~odziad. And in fact there is a village and former estate by that exact name, Tul~odziad, called "Taulensee" by the Germans, in what used to be Ostróda county, but now in Olsztyn province; it's located roughly 20 km. east of Lubawa and 25 km. south of Ostróda. It is a few km. west of Grunwald, the site of a very important battle in 1410 between Polish and Lithuanian forces and the Teutonic Knights; the Knights were defeated, a major turning point in Polish history.

The name of the village is a puzzle, it appears to be a combination of roots tul- meaning "wander, be exiled" or "hug" + dziad, "old man, grandfather"; I have no more information on the name's meaning, but it looks as if it might originally have been named for some old man who was exiled (?), or perhaps for a man with a compound name meaning "affectionate grandfather." Those are just guesses, until Polish scholars finish a large 10-volume dictionary of Polish place names they're working on (they've only gotten up to the D's so far), I'll have no way of knowing for sure, but that's what the name appears to mean.

None of my sources mention the surname Tul~odziecki directly, but odds are it originally meant just "one from Tul~odziad." If the family was noble, this may mean they owned it; if non-noble, they were probably peasants who worked on the estate there, or came from there and moved elsewhere.

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To: Sharon Aney, aneyrs@incentre.net, who wrote:

… You printed a letter and your reply, to someone re: the name "Kielton", and your response included reference to the name "Kieltyka". That is my mother's maiden name... If I understand correctly, that you are able to provide the derivation of the name, and location where it originated, I would be very interested.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions Kiel~tyka in his book on Polish surname (on-line we use l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w but usually just rendered as plain old l in other languages). He says it comes from the root kiel~tac~, "to cut with a dull knife." I'm not sure how this got to be a person's name, and apparently that root is either quite archaic or else used only in dialect, because it doesn't appear in any of my other sources -- but I've found Rymut usually knows his stuff, so I'm inclined to believe him on this one... This name shows up in Krakow legal records as far back as 1382. It's odd that this root kiel~t- generated only this one, rather ancient surname, and otherwise has left no trace in the language; but that's the kind of odd quirk that makes name origins so interesting!

As of 1990 there were 1,518 Polish citizens named Kiel~tyka, living in virtually every province of Poland (there may well be more by that name living in Ukraine, but I have no data on that). The provinces with the largest numbers were: Katowice 233, Krakow 155, Krosno 133, and Tarnow 118 -- all in southcentral or southeastern Poland. Przemysl province, which is where Wyszatyce is located, had 46. However, the database from which this info was compiled was lacking complete data for some provinces, including Przemysl, so the actual number might be somewhat higher... The source of this data is a government database, but the book I got it from only has totals for all of Poland, then for each province. In other words, I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses; the Polish government agency that runs that database won't allow researchers access to such info. So what I've given you here is all I can get.

… Other names in the tree that I would like to know more about, if you have the information are: "Kochonowicz" or "Kochonowich"; "Jaroch"; "Dzuira."

Kochonowicz is probably a misreading of Kochanowicz; the -owicz means "son of," and the root kochan- means "beloved," so the name means roughly "son of the beloved one"; or it may have started more often as just meaning "son of Kochan" where that was a first name in itself, deriving from the root meaning "beloved." As of 1990 there were 1,106 Poles named Kochanowicz, none named Kochonowicz, which is why I think the first form is probably right. The Kochanowicz'es lived all over Poland, but the largest single number for any province was Przemysl, with 208. "Kochonowich" is surely a spelling affected by English phonetic values, since the -cz is pronounced like our "ch." The name would be pronounced by Poles something like "ko-hah-NO-vich."

Jaroch may have started as a nickname of older pagan compound names such as Jaromir, where the first part is an ancient root meaning "harsh, severe," or in some cases "robust, young." But some scholars think the specific names Jaroch and Jarosz came from a variant of the Slavic version of "Jerome." So the name probably meant originally something like "kin of Jerome." As of 1990 there were 1,092 Poles by this surname, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (250) in northwestern Poland and Przemysl (137) in southeastern Poland. The name is pronounced roughly "YAH-rok."

Dziura is probably the right spelling of "Dzuira." This is a very common name, with 6,017 Poles named Dziura as of 1990. It comes from the term dziura, meaning "hole." Perhaps it referred to a person with holes in their clothes, or a person who lived in a hole -- after all these centuries it's hard to say. But that's the basic meaning of the name, there must have been some kind of connection between the person and holes. The name is pronounced something like "jura" (like English "jury" with an -uh sound on the end, instead of an -ee).

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To: Allan W. Schmidt, alschmidt@cyberus.ca, who wrote:

… Recently, I have been making genealogical links to the Germanic family Orthner. Would you happen to known the meaning and origin of this surname?

Hans Bahlow's Deutsches Namenlexikon (available in English translation as Dictionary of German Names) mentions Ortner as coming from a root meaning "end," so that names such as Orthmann, Orth, Ohrt, and Ortner usually referred to where a family lived, i. e., "at the end of the village, end of the street." (Orth- and Ort- are the same, older German spelling often put a silent H after T, as in the name of the writer Goethe, more modern spelling drops the H). I'm afraid I don't have any data on how common the name is in Germany (although I'm sure some book must exist that gives that info), but as of 1990 there were 8 Ortner's in Poland, 1 living in Gdansk province, and 7 living in Opole province, which is in southwestern Poland, in that part of Silesia included in Polish territory after World War II.

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To: Patricia Bosi, Pbosi@aol.com, who wrote:

… If time allows please respond. father’s surname: Sidorowicz

Ah, an easy one! I love easy ones!

In Sidorowicz the suffix -owicz means "son of," and Sidor started as a short form or nickname of the first name Izydor, in English "Isidore." That's a fairly rare name in this country, but over the centuries it's been moderately popular in Poland -- as of 1994 there were 4,054 Poles named Izydor, and a century or two ago it was probably more common. It comes from a Greek name meaning "gift of Isis."

As for Sidorowicz, in 1990 there were some 2,343 Poles with that surname, so it's a moderately common name. Sidorowicz'es lived all over Poland, with the largest numbers (100+) in the provinces of Warsaw (173), Bialystok (345), Gdansk (136), Gorzow (122), Suwalki (173), and Wroclaw (108). This means there's a particular concentration of people by this name in northeastern Poland (Suwalki and Bialystok provinces) -- but you can't really assume that's where a given Sidorowicz family came from, as there's practically no part of Poland that doesn't have at least a few.

By the way, there are several other common surnames that also mean "son of Isidore," including Sidorczuk (1,128) and Sidoruk (1,208). I haven't yet discovered any particular rule or pattern as to why some folks would say the same thing with -owicz, some with -czuk, some with -uk. Maybe one day I'll find out if there is any pattern to it, or if it's just a matter of what people liked the sound of.

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To: Sue Biedron, sbiedron@starnetusa.net, who wrote:

… Can you tell me about the surname of Biedron?

According to Polish name experts, names beginning with Biedr- can come from the noun biedron~, which means "ox with mottled coloring, of many colors" (I'm using n~ to stand for the Polish n with an accent over it), or from the noun biedro (also spelled biodro), "hip, haunch." Since Biedron~ is an exact match with the word for ox, it seems likely that's what that particular name derives from, rather than from the "hip" root. It's difficult to say exactly how such names got started, because they originated centuries ago, often from nicknames, and it can be very difficult to figure out exactly what the original connection was. A Biedron~ might have gotten that nickname because he wore clothes that reminded people of the coloring of a certain ox; or maybe he owned such an ox. About all we can know for sure is that there was something about the first person to bear this name that people somehow connected with an ox.

As of 1990 there were 1,636 Polish citizens named Biedron~. The name could be found all over the country, but was particularly common in the provinces of Czestochowa (277), Katowice (171), Krakow (102), Nowy Sacz (203), and Tarnow (189) -- all in southcentral or southeastern Poland. Unfortunately, there's nothing about the name that helps us pin it down to a more specific area.

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To: Greg Bulawa, gbulawa@iquest.net, who wrote:

… Earlier this year you provided me information about my surname. I was wondering, if you have the time, could you please provide information concerning the name Ludwa.

As of 1990 there were 340 Polish citizens with this name, of whom by far the largest number (181) lived in the province of Tarnow in southeastern Poland; there were much smaller numbers scattered all over the rest of the country.

None of my sources mention this name, but it seems most likely this started as a short form or nickname of Ludwik, the Polish form of the name Louis (in German, Ludwig). I can find no native Polish root with ludw-, and the connection with Ludwik seems too obvious to ignore. There is a basic Slavic root lud- meaning "entice, allure, deceive," and ludwa or ludva could possibly have derived from that. But it seems much more likely to me it's just a short form or nickname for Ludwik. Poles often took the first part of popular first names, dropped the rest, and added suffixes, so Ludwik -> Ludwa is not at all implausible.

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To: Leslie, peas32@erols.com, who wrote:

… I am trying to find the orgins of two surnames listed as Austria/Pol on documents. Krol and Sniezek.

Król comes from the Polish word for "king," which is król (the Polish ó is pronounced like the "oo" in "good"). It could have started as a nickname, perhaps calling somebody the king of a little group; it also sometimes was applied to someone who was a servant of the king. It's a very common surname, as of 1990 there were 46,458 Poles named Król, living all over the country in huge numbers.

S~niez*ek would be spelled in Polish with an accent over the S and a dot over the Z, pronounced something like "SHNYEH-zek." That doesn't sound very pretty to our ears, yet it's actually kind of a pretty name, because it comes from s~nieg, "snow." The -ek is a diminutive, so s~niez*ek (as we write it on-line, trying to compensate for not being able to reproduce the Polish characters) means something like "little snow." As of 1990 there were 1,315 Poles with this name; it is found all over the country, but the largest numbers are in the provinces of Katowice (136), Krakow (94), Krosno (282), Opole (110), Rzeszow (86), and Wroclaw (91) -- all in southcentral to southeastern Poland, and therefore mainly in Galicia, that part of Poland ruled by Austria from the late 1700's till after World War I.

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To: Robert Kornasiewicz, RAK@nrc.gov, who wrote:

… The surname that I am interested in is Kornasiewicz. My grandfather was born in the town of Besko in Austrian Galitzia around 1880. I have located a town of this name about 20 miles west of the city of Sanok in

southeastern Poland...

The suffix -ewicz or -owicz means "son of" (making the name a so-called "patronymic," a name derived from one's father's name), so Kornasiewicz means "son of Kornas~," where s~ stands for the Polish accented s, written si when followed by a vowel. So the real question is, what does the name Kornas~ or Kornas come from? Polish scholars have come up with a couple of different possible derivations, but no way to be certain which one is right in a given instance. The name can come from the root korn-, "humble, submissive, obedient," or from kórnik, "bark beetle," or from the first name Kornel (the Polish version of Latin Cornelius). The bark beetle connection seems least likely in this case, because the -ik suffix is integral to that meaning and that suffix does not appear in this name. So we're left with Kornas~ as either a nickname for "Cornelius" -- which is quite plausible -- or perhaps as an old first name in its own right, given to someone in hope that he will be humble... By the way, among Slavs this basic notion of korn- is not an insult, Poles and Russians etc. admire someone who's simple, honest, and humble; so whereas "humble, submissive, obedient" may not sound like virtues to us, a name from the root korn- could be thought of as having a positive connotation, the perfect name for a fellow who's good-hearted and not too full of himself.

It's interesting that as of 1990 there were 1,266 Polish citizens named Kornas (no accent over the s), another 1,631 named Kornas~ (with the accent) -- but only 100 named Kornasiewicz. That's kind of unusual, as surnames patronymics are generally as common as the names they came from, if not more so. But there are exceptions, and this is one. The 100 Kornasiewicz'es lived in the provinces of: Warsaw (22), Bielsko-Biala (3), Katowice (5), Kielce (3), Krosno (56), Opole (1), Rzeszow (1), Skierniewice (3), Szczecin (1), and Wroclaw (5) -- unfortunately I have no access to further details, such as first names or addresses. This data fits well with your information, since Besko is in the province of Krosno in southeastern Poland, and that area has the largest concentration of Kornasiewicz'es in Poland. Southeastern Poland and western Ukraine comprised the "crownland" of Galicia in the Austrian Empire, and Krosno was right in the heart of it. So this data suggests you are looking in exactly the right place.

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

… If I may bother you for just one more surname origin - it was my grandmother's maiden name: Dulemba.

This name can be spelled either Dulemba or Dule~ba (with e~ standing for the Polish nasal vowel written as E with a tail under it and pronounced like en, but before b or p like em) because both spellings sound like "doo-LEM-bah." There are many Polish surnames ultimately from the root dul-, "swelling, thickening," and this may be one of them. But although I can't find any confirmation of this in works by the experts, I suspect the name derives more directly from dule~ba, a dialect term for an awkward, uncouth fellow. As of 1990 there were 2,199 Polish citizens who spelled the name Dule~ba and another 618 who spelled it Dulemba, so it's a pretty common name (I don't know why it is, but there seem to be jillions of common Polish names from insulting terms, and only a few from complimentary ones!?). You can find Dule~ba's or Dulemba's all over Poland, but the largest numbers of Dule~ba's are in the provinces of Kielce (780) and Bydgoszcz (136), whereas Dulemba's are most common in the provinces of Katowice (136), Kielce (96), and Rzeszow (71).

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To: Dynise Balcavage, balcavage@beaver.edu, who wrote:

… Thank you for posting your interesting, informative information on Polish surnames. I'm trying to find more about mine--Balkiewicz, and also those of my maternal grandparents--Grunwalski and Bobrowski.

The suffix -ewicz means "son of," so Balkiewicz means "son of Balek, Balka, or Balko." This first name could develop in several ways, as a short form of Baltazar (by tradition the name of one of the Three Kings or Magi), from the Hungarian first name Bal, or from the Polish root bal- meaning "to tell tales." As of 1990 there were some 270 Polish citizens named Balkiewicz, scattered in many different provinces, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Elblag (60), Gdansk (25), Lodz (20), Olsztyn (20), and Ostroleka (26) -- all in northern Poland, in what used to be Prussia. (I'm afraid I have no access to further details such as first names and addresses).

Names ending in -owski usually refer to a connection between a person or family and a place with a similar name; we'd expect Bobrowski to have started out meaning "person from Bobrow, Bobrowo, Bobry," etc. Those places, in tern, got their names from the root bóbr, "beaver." In effect, Bobrowski means "one from the place of the beavers." There are quite a few villages named Bobra, Bobry, Bobrowo, etc., so the name itself doesn't tell us which a given Bobrowski family was connected with. As of 1990 there were 5,874 Polish citizens named Bobrowski, so it's a pretty common name and probably developed independently in many different areas.

Grunwalski is surely an adjective meaning "of, from Grunwald." This is a German name meaning "green forest," and there are several places in Poland that are or have been called by that name (especially when western and northern Poland was ruled by Germany). The most famous Grunwald was the site of a battle in 1410 in which Polish and Lithuanian forces defeated the Teutonic Knights, a major event in the history of Poland. As of 1990 there were only 7 Grunwalski's in Poland, 6 in Katowice province and 1 in Opole province, so it's a pretty rare name -- but 1,269 Poles were named Grunwald!