PolishRoots - Surnames: Origins & Meanings

This name could develop two ways. It can be a diminutive form of socha, a forked branch, also a kind of primitive plow; so if a fellow used such a branch, or his shape reminded him of one, he might get the nickname "Soszka," "the little forked branch." The name can also derive as a short form of old pagan compound names beginning with So- such as Sobiesl~aw -- these names were ancient, and as time went on the Poles liked to take the first part, drop the rest, and add suffixes. It's sort of like what we did with "Theodore" to get "Teddy." And just as "Teddy" doesn't really mean anything -- it's just a short form of Theodore, which originally meant "gift of the gods" -- so Soszka wouldn't really mean anything, but is just a short form of various older names that did originally mean something. At this point, centuries after names such as Soszka developed, it's difficult to say which of these two roots the name came from in the case of an individual family.

As of 1990 there were 1,167 Polish citizens named Soszka, living all over the country; the largest number of Soszka's lived in the provinces of Lublin (127), Siedlce (315), and Warsaw (154), so there is no one area the name is particularly associated with. (I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses).

As Mr. Piszczor told you, this is a very rare name in Poland these days; only 18 Polish citizens had that name, and all but 4 lived in Warsaw province. And unfortunately, due to its rarety, it hasn't come in for any attention in any of the sources I have -- none of them mention it. I do feel the similarity to Garwolin~ski is deceptive, in that Gardolin~ski probably does not have anything to do with that name.

Most likely Gardolin~ski began as a reference to a connection between a person or family and a place named something like Gardolin, Gardolino, Gardola, etc. There are villages named Gardlin in both Bialystok and Lomza provinces, and the surname might be connected with one or both of them. I'd expect a surname meaning "coming from Gardlin" to be Gardlin~ski, but it's not out of the question that an -o- might slip in there. Other than that, none of my gazetteers or atlases mention a place with an appropriate name. Of course, this is not rare -- surnames typically formed several centuries ago, and since then many of the places that generated surnames have disappeared, been absorbed into other communities, changed their names, etc. So often we find a surname that clearly came from a place name, but can no longer find any trace of that place.

I note in a Polish encyclopedia mention of an Edmund Gardolinski, born 1914, a Polonian activist, engineer, and historian of the Polish community in Brazil, and a representative of Rio Grande do Sul in the legislature. Surely it's not assuming too much to suppose this was/is your grandfather? ... Unfortunately, that's the only prominent Gardolinski I can find any mention of.

The only way I know of to get a better answer on the name's derivation would be for you to spend $10-20 and contact the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute in Krakow; they can correspond in English, and they do research into name origins, not genealogical research. If anyone can pin down the exact origin and derivation of this name, it would be the scholars of that Workshop. The address is given on page 177 (assuming you have the second edition of my book). I strongly suggest you write them and see if they can tell you anything.

And by the way, if you do write the Workshop and they give you a good answer, I'd be very interested in hearing what they say. I would gladly add Gardolin~ski to the next edition of my book, if I just had some info on the name's origin. So if you do write and get an answer, I'd appreciate very much getting a copy!

As of 1990 there were 444 Brodzki's living in Poland proper -- but I have no data for the areas that used to be part of the Polish Commonwealth but now are in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. The name can derive from many different roots, including broda, "beard," bro'd, "ford, wading-place," from short forms of ancient pagan Slavic names such as Brodzisl~aw, etc. But from what you say, it seems in your case the most likely derivation is from the name of the town of Brody, a county seat in what used to be Galicia (the territory ruled by Austria after the partitions) and now in Ukraine. If that's so, the name would mean basically just "one from Brody." As I say, I have no data for anywhere but Poland in its modern boundaries, so I can't tell you how common a name Brodzki is in Ukraine (of course, it would be spelled in Cyrillic, and would be written in English phonetic values more like Brodsky).

As of 1990 there were 135 Poles named Hodyl, scattered in numerous provinces all over Poland, with no concentration in any one area; I'm afraid I only have data for Poland in its current boundaries, so anyone living by this name still living in Belarus would not show up. And there have been sizable numbers of Poles living in Belarus for centuries now -- Belarus was long part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so it's quite credible that people living there could be of Polish ancestry.

None of my sources mention anything about this specific name's derivation. A number of names beginning with Hod- and Chod- (in Polish h and ch are pronounced exactly the same, kind of like the guttural ch in German "Bach") are given as deriving from the root chod-, "to walk, go," and this same root is used in Russian and Ukrainian (in Belarusian it appears with an a sound rather than an o); among these names are Chodyl~a, which would mean something like "the guy who likes to walk, who's always walking." It is quite plausible that Hodyl is more or less the same thing, although as I say, none of my sources say so specifically.

If Hodyl is the name of a river or stream, I can't find it on any of my maps. But often surnames did come from names of little streams -- sort of a verbal shorthand meaning the family lived near the stream -- and there certainly could be such a stream that wouldn't show up on my maps (which are not too detailed). Naliboki (now Nalibaki in Belarus) is on a river named Lebiezada, about 110 km. from Oszmiana (now Asmiany in Belarus) and 160 km. from Wilno (now Vilnius in Lithuania).

It's interesting that there is a village called Hadzilivichy in Belarus, also called Hadzilowicze and Hodzilowicze by the Poles, about which a late 19th-century Polish gazetteer says this:

I mention this because the Hadzilov- form is Belarusian, but Poles would call it Hodzilowicze and Ukrainians would call it Hodylowicze -- and the name means "[place of] the sons of Hodyl." In other words, if you factor in each language's phonetic tendencies, this village name comes from more or less the same root as your surname. That doesn't mean the two are related in any way, but it's at least interesting. This village is just a few km. east of Rohaczew, as the Poles call it, or Ragachev, as the Belarusians call it.

As for a Dutch connection -- well, it's possible. A lot of Dutch and Germans were invited to come settle in sparsely-populated areas of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as farmers and skilled craftsmen they were highly desirable colonists. So I can't rule out a Dutch origin. But let's just say this: the name makes perfect sense in a Slavic context, there's certainly no reason to assume there had to be a Dutch connection. But we can't rule it out.

The surname Zapolski comes from the term zapole, "corn bin," or from the place name Zapole, which may come from that word or from za, "past, beyond" + pole, "field" -- unfortunately, there are over 70 villages in Poland called Zapole, so it's very hard to say with any certainty which one a given Zapolski family might have been connected with back when surnames were originating, several centuries ago.

As of 1990 there were 1,066 Polish citizens named Zapolski, of whom the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bialystok (143), Olsztyn (89), and Suwalki (201) in northeast Poland; so yur grandfather came from the general area where the name is most common, although you see it all over the country... With the link to northeastern Poland, I suggest you investigate joining the Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast, 8 Lyle Rd., New Britain CT 06053. A lot of their members come from the Bialystok-Lomza region, so they've specialized in that area and just might be able to offer you some good leads. I think it's worth a try.

I'm afraid I can't help you with Pucrsztowskich, because it's not the correct form of the name -- just as one can tell that Anderqswn is not the right spelling of an English name, certain letter combinations just don't occur in given languages, and "Pucrsz-" is not Polish (or any other language I know of). I can say that the -ch ending is almost certainly a grammatical ending that should be dropped. Maiden names are often given in Polish records as, for instance, Anna z Grabowskich, which means literally "Anna of the Grabowski's"; to get the standard form of the name you drop the -ch. But as I say, Pucrsztowski still doesn't work.

Sometimes I can look at a mangled name and figure out what the original form was, but I can't get this one -- there are too many possibilities. If you find some record that gives you another form, let me know and I'll see if I can tell you anything about it.

Like all names ending in -ski, this one is adjectival, meaning basically "of, pertaining to the __ of Zachary," and you fill in the blank with an appropriate word, such as "family," "place," "estate," etc. It could have been applied in some instances to people who were kin of a man named Zachary, but I'd think more often it would mean "person from Zacharzów, Zacharzew, Zacharzewo," etc., where those are all place names meaning "Zachary's place." Presumably at some point a Zachary owned or founded such a village, or was prominent there. I notice on the map there are at least four places that could generate this surname, Zacharz in Piotrkow province, Zacharzów in Radom province, Zacharzew in Kalisz province, and Zacharzowice in Katowice province. There could well be more, places too small to show up on my maps, or ones that have changed their names or disappeared in the centuries since the surname was established. Zacharzew is the best fit, followed by Zacharzów, but the truth is, the surname Zacharzewski could very well have started as a reference to any of those places.

As of 1990 there were 888 Polish citizens named Zacharzewski; the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Gdansk (56), Lomza (87), and Warsaw (63), with smaller numbers scattered in numerous other provinces. (I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses). So unfortunately neither the name nor its distribution gives us any firm clues that would let us point to a specific place and say "That's where the name comes from." Different families with this name could have come from different places.

In Poland Pozorski is not an extremely common name, as such things go, but neither is it rare -- as of 1990 there were 1,409 Polish citizens named Pozorski. They lived all over Poland, with the largest numbers (40+) in the provinces of: Bydgoszcz (484), Elblag (47), Gdansk (365), Pila (60), Slupsk (57), Szczecin (53), and Torun (44). The name is thought to have derived from the archaic term pozor, "semblance, appearance."

With that distribution pattern, it is at least possible this name is associated with the ethnic group known as the Kaszubs; they are closely related to the Poles, but have their own language and customs, and represent a fascinating subject in their own right. If you would like to learn a little more, you might benefit by visiting the Webpage of the Kashubian Association of North America: http://feefhs.org/kana/frg-kana.html

I'm not positive Pozorski is a Kaszub name, but that distribution pattern of greatest frequency in the provinces of Gdansk and Bydgoszcz is typically Kaszubian -- those are their ancestral lands. So there is at least a decent chance your family may have some Kaszub connections, and if so the Website of KANA may offer some valuable leads. I hope so, and I hope this information proves helpful to you!

It's tough to give anything reliable on a name if you don't have a reliable spelling -- change one letter, and it can make all the difference in the world. Still, it sounds to me as if we're probably dealing with the name Ke~sek (e~ is how we represent on-line the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced most of the time like en); we often see e~ spelled en in names, so that Ke~sek would often show up as Kensek. As for Kiesek, that's not too hard to explain; in proper Polish the combination Ke- is not supposed to happen, there should always be an I between them, thus Kie-. That rule doesn't apply to nasal e~, but many Poles would stick an i in there anyway, by force of habit. So Kesek, Kensek, and Kiesek would all make sense if the original name was Ke~sek.

This name comes from the root seen in ke~s, "piece, bit," and ke~sy, "short, scanty"; the suffix -ek is a diminutive, meaning either "little" or in names "son of." My best guess is that this name would be applied to a short fellow or his son. As of 1990 there were 674 Polish citizens named Ke~sek, with by far the largest numbers in the provinces of Krakow (448) and Nowy Sacz (49) in southcentral Poland. There are smaller numbers of Ke~sek's living in other provinces, but the Krakow-Nowy Sacz area is the site of the main concentration.

It's pretty certain this would be a surname formed from the first name Augustyn, in English "Augustine." The most likely candidates are Augustyn (7,143 Poles had that surname as of 1990), Augustyniak (14,211, meaning "son of Augustine"), or perhaps Agustyniak (13, a variant of Augustyniak, meaning the same thing). The variant Agustyniak is quite rare, but is possible; the other forms are extremely common. The Chicago-area Polish-language newspaper Dziennik Chicagoski had an obit in its 28 Dec 1927 issue for a Jan Agustyniak, and as best I can determine that was how he spelled his name, it wasn't a misprint for Augustyniak... Those are the surnames that seem most likely to be relevant in your case.

If you want to see if you can find more Agustyniak's, you might visit the Website of the Polish Genealogical Society of America at www.pgsa.org and use their searchable databases for the Chicagoski obits, and also for Haller's Army volunteers, to look up the name. Who knows, you might find some relatives?

Yes, it is, and it's a pleasure to talk to someone who actually bothers to read what I write and understand it! So often I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming "I've already answered that, it's right there in black and white!" I know that's overreacting, but repeating the same thing gets frustrating after a while -- so it's gratifying to deal with someone who has read and comprehended!

I'm afraid not, as of 1990 there were 4,267 Polish citizens named Pilarczyk, and by Polish standards anything over 1,000 has to be considered moderately common. The Pilarczyk's lived all over the country -- which makes sense in view of the meaning of the name, it obviously could develop anywhere they spoke Polish and had sawyers who had sons. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of: Kalisz 586, Katowice 409, Konin 379, Lodz 228, Poznan 393, but there was no part of the country that didn't have at least some Pilarczyk's living there. Some of the 379 in Konin province probably live near the Krempa/Tuliszków area and may be related, but obviously with numbers of this sort it's dangerous to jump to conclusions... Unfortunately, the source from which I got this data does not include first names or addresses, and I don't have access to those details.

Dranka appears to come from dranka, "batten, board." As of 1990 there were 338 Poles by this name, with a clump in Krosno province (153) and a few scattered here and there all over.

Dynda comes from the verb dyndac~, "to dangle, swing," or dynda, "something dangling, swinging." As of 1990 there were 293 Poles by this name, concentrated mainly in Nowy Sacz province (109) and Rzeszow province (70) in southcentral and southeastern Poland.

Iwaszko would be an East Slavic name from Iwan, the Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian version of "John"; Iwaszko would be sort of like "Johnny" in English. As of 1990 there were 1,651 Polish citizens named Iwaszko, scattered all over.

Imbor, pronounced sort of like "EEM-bore," almost certainly comes from the root imbir, "ginger"; I imagine it refers to the spice or to ginger-colored hair or something similar, not to Ginger on "Gilligan's Island." As of 1990 there were 129 Poles named Imbor (with the largest numbers in Katowice province, 28, and Kielce province 52), as well as 395 named Imbierowicz ("son of ginger") and 118 named Imbiorski ("of, from, pertaining to ginger").

Japola is a mystery, I could find nothing on it. However, as of 1990 there were 6 Japola's (5 in Lublin province, 1 in Przemysl province), and 28 Poles named Japol~ (12 in Nowy Sacz province, 9 in Szczecin province), also 8 named Japol~l~, all in Krakow province.

As of 1990 there were 858 Kojder's in Poland. This was a name I could find nothing on -- it sounds to me as if it might be German, perhaps Keuder or something like that, but I came up empty trying to pin this one down. The Kojder's were most common in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (150), Jelenia Gora (122), Przemysl (128), and Rzeszow (105), thus in southern Poland.

Kuczun is a tough one, there are three roots it could come from: 1) kuczyc~, "to tease, annoy"; 2) kucza, "hut, tent," or kuczka, "small heap." As of 1990 there were 33 Poles by that name, living in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 4, Jelenia Gora 4, Kielce 6, Slupsk 13, Tarnow 3, Walbrzych 3 -- in other words, they were scattered all over the country.

L~achman is either a variant of l~ach, "rag, clout, clothes," or a Polonized form of German Lachmann, "one dwelling by a pool." As of 1990 there were 476 Lachman's in Poland (most common in Krakow province, 145, and Katowice province, 50), 74 Lachmann's. There were 249 L~achman's, 100 in Krakow province and 76 in Tarnobrzeg province and a few scattered in other provinces.

Moson~ (the ~ signifies an accent over n) is one of numerous names thought to have derived from abbreviations or nicknames of first names beginning with Mo-, such as Mojsl~aw or Mojz*esz (Moses). Poles often took the first part of such names, dropped the rest, and added suffixes, so Moson~ would mean no more than "Teddy" does in English -- it started as a nickname for a longer name that did originally mean something (like Teddy from Theodore, from a Greek name meaning "gift of the gods"). As of 1990 there were 405 Poles named Moson~, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Krosno (82) and Tarnow (82) in southeastern Poland.

Osikowicz means "son of the aspen"; the -owicz suffix means "son of," and osika is "the aspen tree." It may have referred to the son of a fellow who lived near aspens, or worked with them, or something of that sort. As of 1990 there were 170 Osikowicz'es in Poland, with something of a concentration in southcentral Poland (22 in Krakow province, 38 in Nowy Sacz province, 30 in Katowice province).

Rzeszutek is a moderately common name (1,763 as of 1990) from the term rzeszoto, "sieve, grain measurement."

Sokol~ów comes from the root sokól~, "falcon." Surnames from this root are very common, as comparisons to the falcon made for a complimentary name, and there were also numerous places named Sokoly or something similar because there were lots of falcons there. Sokol~ów is one of the rarer surnames from this root, as of 1990 there were only 131 Sokol~ów's, scattered all over the country, with the only large number in Warsaw province (47).

Trynda is thought to come from the verb tryndac~ sie~, "to shuffle one's feet, squirm." As of 1990 there were 218 Poles named Trynda, with the largest numbers in the southcentral provinces of Czestochowa (81) and Katowice (37) and the southeastern province of Zamosc (35).

Watarz appears to come from wata, which can mean "cotton wadding" or "large drag-net" -- my guess is a watarz would be someone who used a large drag-net, but I can't be sure. As of 1990 there was only 1 Watarz in Poland.

Siekierka comes from the term siekiera, "ax, hatchet"; the -ka suffix is diminutive, so that the name means "little ax," possibly a name given the son of a man known for a connection with this weapon (perhaps he made them, was especially handy at using them, etc.). As of 1990 there were 1,026 Siekierka's in Poland; they lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (136), Katowice (130), and Opole (140), all in southcentral and soutwestern Poland. There were only 17 in the modern-day province of Poznan; unfortunately, I don't have access to first names or addresses or any other details beyond what I've given here... By the way, "Wielkie Ksie~stwo Poznan~skie" means "Grand Duchy of Poznan," it was the name of a political entity that existed 1815-1918, of which the city of Poznan (German "Posen") was the capital.

There was no one by any of these names in Poland as of 1990 -- we are almost certainly dealing with a Lithuanian name here. I wonder if "Littan" might not be Littau, German for "Lithuania," or Litwa, the Polish name for that country? This surname and Barniszke are almost certainly Lithuanian, or at least influenced by Lithuanian. Lithuania was an integral part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for centuries, and many Poles lived there. It's possible the records are saying these people came from Lithuania, Poland, which makes sense because Lithuania was long considered part of Poland (although Lithuanians would disagree!), and you often see Lithuanian names referred to as "Polish" by those who didn't know any better.

There is a known surname in Lithuania, S^narpunas (with a little caret over the first S, giving it the sound of "sh" in English, which is spelled sz in Polish); it is apparently found mainly in the area of Vilkavis^kis (Polish name Wilkowyszki). According to Lith. experts, it comes from a verb s^narpti, meaning "to gulp soup, make a rather unpleasant sound clearing one's nose." A person might have gotten this as a nickname because of a habit, and it stuck -- there are many, many names in Polish and Lithuanian that are uncomplimentary, even insulting; compared to some, this is mild!

There was no one by this name, or anything like it, in Poland as of 1990. As I said, this name, too, sounds Lithuanian; it could be a Polonized form of Lithuanian Barnis^kis, from Lithuanian forms of the first name "Bernard."

Well, if this is a Polish name, it's misspelled -- Polish doesn't use the letter V. It may well be a misreading of Krawiecka, the feminine form of Krawiecki, or it could be a Lithuanian-influenced spelling. Krawiecki is a moderately common surname, borne by 1,090 Polish citizens as of 1990. It comes from the word krawiec, "tailor," and is literally an adjective meaning simply "of, from, pertaining to a tailor."

You might wish to learn more about this possible Lithuanian connection by going to this address: http://www.lithuaniangenealogy.org

This one's not even a challenge. Kwiatek comes from the Polish root kwiat, "flower." The suffix -ek is a diminutive, so the name means literally "little flower." Surnames from this root are very common in Poland, and this is no exception; as of 1990 there were 5,448 Polish citizens named Kwiatek. I would give you a breakdown of where they lived by province, but it would be kind of pointless; there's no particular pattern to the distribution, it's just a fairly common name all over the country... This name appears in Polish records as far back as 1136 – a papal Bull in Latin from that date mentions "Ponat, Quatec, Targossa," where "Quatec" is a Latin phonetic spelling of Kwiatek (quoted in Najdawniejsze zabytki jezyka polskiego [The Most Ancient Relics of the Polish Language], ed. W. Taszycki, Biblioteka Narodowa, seria I, nr. 104, 3rd edition, Wroclaw 1951, p. 70) -- so it has been around a long time!

Garczyn~ski is a moderately common name in Poland; as of 1990 there were 2,366 Polish citizens by that name, living all over the country but with particularly large numbers (200+) in the provinces of Warsaw (217), Lodz (238), Poznan (314). The derivation of the name is not clear; it could come from the dialect term garczyna, "pot, broken pot," also used in a symbolic sense to mean "poor or sickly person." But it may also refer to origin in a place named Garcz or Garczyn; my guess is that in a lot of cases the name started as a way of calling someone who came from the village of Garczyn in Gdansk province, or Garczyn Duzy in Siedlce province. But it's likely there isn't just one Garczyn~ski family, but the name developed independently in different places, perhaps in most cases from these two places I've mentioned (or others with similar names too small to show up on my maps), maybe in a few cases also from that term garczyna.

That "Leullmaini" doesn't look or sound right for either German or Polish -- I'm afraid it's been misread. It's probably a town or village in that part of northern or western Poland ruled for a long time by Germany. If you could be sure what it says, that would help you a lot. If there's any way you could get a copy of that form to me (scan it and attach it as a graphics file to an E-mail note, or mail it to me), I'd be willing to look at it and see if I can figure out what it says.

The standard form of this name in Polish is Rozmarynowski, but it makes perfect sense that it could come to be spelled the way you write it in English. The -owski is properly pronounced "off-skee" in Polish, but in many parts of the country they barely pronounce that "ff" sound, so that it comes out more like "-ah-skee." Thus Rosemarynoski is a pretty good way of writing how Rozmarynowski sounds to those of us used to English phonetic values.

The root of the name is rozmaryn, the Polish word for the herb "rosemary" (both English and Polish get this word from Latin rosmarinus). The surname, like all names ending in -ski, is an adjective, meaning literally "of, from, pertaining to the __ of rosemary," where you fill in the blank with something implied and understood, something that doesn't need to be said. It could be "kin," it could be "place." So the surname could mean "of, from, pertaining to the kin of Rosmaryn," with that used as a first name. This seems possible because there is also a surname Rozmarynowicz, "son of Rozmaryn," so this may have been used as a first name.

But more likely in most cases is that the surname means "person from Rozmarynowo," where that is the name of a village, literally "the place of rosemary," i. e., a place where there was a lot of rosemary around. One of my gazetteers mentions a Rozmarynowo in the county of Wrzesnia in or near Poznan province; I can't find it on any of my maps, it may be too small to show up, or it may have disappeared, or it may have changed its name. After all, most surnames are at least a couple of centuries old, and many, many surnames refer to places that have since changed names or disappeared, etc. But it makes sense that a person or family who came from this place (and possibly others too small to show up in my sources) known for its rosemary might come to be called Rozmarynowski, i. e., "one from Rozmarynowo" = "one from the place of rosemary."

As of 1990 there were 1,055 Polish citizens named Rozmarynowski; they lived all over the country, with the largest numbers (50+) in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (98), Gdansk (54), Katowice (62), Pila (135), Poznan (79), Sieradz (124), and Warsaw (54). There was no one who spelled the name Rozmarynoski, without the w, but that's not odd -- the spelling of names has been somewhat standardized over the last century, so people have gotten used to writing names as -owski even if they don't pronounce them that way. Rosemarynoski is a purely English spelling, so it's not surprising no one in Poland spelled the name that way.

Well, there is a limit to how much I can tell anyone about specific families -- I just don't have the data. I can, however, suggest that "Posnine, Poland" is probably "Poznan," one of the major cities of Poland. If an American asked a Pole where he came from and the Pole answered "Poznan," the American would probably write what he heard as "Posnine." So I think it's very likely Poznan (called Posen by the Germans when they ruled the area) is what you're looking for... The bad news is that in Poland such administrative subdivisions as provinces (wojewodztwa) and counties (powiaty) and districts (gminy) are named for the town in which their administrative centers were located; Poznan has been the center of various such subdivisions, and often when people said where they came from, they were referring to the province or county of Poznan, not the city. In other words, "I come from Poznan" might have meant not the city but the whole region of which Poznan was the capital, which historically was larger than the modern-day province of Poznan. So you want to start by assuming your husband's family came from the city of Poznan -- it's a big place, lots of people did -- but there's no guarantee that assumption will prove correct.

"Michael John Kubisiak" would appear in Polish records as "Michal~ Jan Kubisiak" (I'm using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w). "Stahley" and "Kathan" make no sense, those aren't Polish names; I'm guessing "Stahley" should be "Stanley," which is an English name often used as an equivalent to Polish "Stanisl~aw." As for "Kathan," I have to guess here -- it seems most likely to be a misreading or misspelling of "Katarzyna," the Polish form of "Catherine."

Now, as for the surname Kubisiak, it breaks down as Kubis + -iak. Kubis is a nickname derived from the last part of the first name Jakub (Jacob); for some reason English-speakers never formed a nickname from that part, but Poles and Germans formed several, and Kubis is one -- it would be kind of like "Jake" or "Jakey" in English. The -iak suffix usually means "son of" in surnames, so the surname started out meaning "Kubis's son," referring to some member of the family named Kubis who was fairly prominent in his community at the time surnames were becoming established.

Surnames formed from first names are pretty common in Poland, and Kubisiak is no exception -- as of 1990 there were 1,405 Polish citizens named Kubisiak. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Kalisz (142), Lodz (126), Poznan (192). The significant number of Kubisiaks living in the Poznan province suggests that could well be where your husband's ancestors came from. Unfortunately, this still doesn't narrow the search down enough to do you much good.

I hate to say it, but to have any realistic chance of tracing the family in Poland, you're going to have to have more info from some source -- naturalization papers, ship passenger lists, records at a church (often marriage or baptismal records give info on family origins). Even if the family came from the city of Poznan rather than the surrounding area, Poznan is too big to track down one family with a name as common as Kubisiak. To make any progress tracing the family in Poland, you absolutely have to have the correct name, birthdate, and birthplace of the ancestor who emigrated. Until you have those, your chances of getting anywhere are pretty slim. I realize you were probably hoping the surname would provide a clue or a lead, but the truth is I have to disappoint people who hope for that about 95% of the time. Most Polish names just don't offer any information that helps significantly with research.

As of 1990 there were 527 Polish citizens named Tomaka, living in small numbers in numerous provinces but with by far the largest concentration, 306, living in the province of Rzeszow, in southeastern Poland. There were only 8 in Krakow province, which is where Oswiecim is located -- actually there are 2 Oswiecim's, there's another one in Kalisz province, but the one near Krakow is the famous one, known in German as Auschwitz. The spelling Oswiencima does not contradict origin in Oswiecim. In Polish, Oswiecim is spelled with an accent over the s, giving it a slight "sh" sound, and a tail under the e, giving it the sound of en; so it's not at all unusual to see Polish names with that nasal e spelled also with en instead, Oswiecim = Oswiencim. As for the final -a, that is probably just an ending dictated by Polish grammar, for instance "from Oswiecim" is z Oswiecima, and in such cases the case ending should be dropped to arrive at the standard form of the name... I should add that the data given above is all I have access to; in other words, I cannot get further details such as first names or addresses of any of those Tomaka's in this province or that.

Actually, it's possible the surname in question is Tomak, and that final -a there, too, is a case ending dictated by grammar. But I notice as of 1990 there were only 63 Tomak's, as opposed to 527 Tomaka's, so the numbers suggest the latter is indeed the name you're interested in. The names mean much the same thing, so it's not a major issue which is meant, but Tomaka seems correct.

This name comes from the first name Tomasz, "Thomas." Poles often formed nicknames (which could later become established as surnames in their own right) by taking the first few sounds of a popular first name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes (not unlike "Tommy" in English). Tomaka probably should be broken down as Tom- + -ak- + -a, where Tom- is from Tomasz, -ak is a suffix meaning "little, son of," and -a is an ending meaning "of," so that the name began as meaning "[kin] of Tom's son." Tomak, by contrast, would be simply "Tom's son" or "little Tom." Tomak appears in records as far back as 1369, I can't explain why it is now rare and Tomaka is much more common; sometimes these things just happen with names, perhaps because Poles just liked the sound of one more than the other.

Dziedziak comes from the root dziad, "old man, grandfather." The suffix -iak, in names, usually means "son of" -- the vowel -a- in dziad often changes to -e- when suffixes are added -- so the basic meaning of this name is "son of the old man, grandfather's son," something like that. Another possible source is a short form of ancient Slavic names with this root _dziad- such as Dziadumil ("dear to grandfather"), so in some cases the name may have started as "son of Dziad" or some other nickname formed from one of those old names. The bottom line in either case, however, is derivation from that root dziad, one way or another. As of 1990 there were 501 Poles by this name; they lived all over the country, but with a particular concentration (208) in Nowy Sacz province, in southcentral Poland. In Polish the name is pronounced roughly "JED-jock."

I'm afraid Dubiel, pronounced roughly "DOOB-yell," is one of many names that are not very complimentary: it comes from dubiel, "stupid person, simpleton" according to Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut and others. I guess there were a lot of stupid people in Poland, as this is a pretty common name: there were 8,722 Poles named Dubiel as of 1990, living all over the country but especially common in southcentral and southeastern Poland.

[Subsequent analysis by Polish name experts has established that dubiel is also a term referring to a specific kind of small fish, Carpio collari. A connection is also possible with dub, which means "oak tree" in Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian. So it is quite possible that, in a given instance, the surname referred to some connection between an ancestor and this fish, or to oaks, and not to any lack of mental acuity. Without more information on a specific Dubiel family's history, it's impossible to say for sure which derivation applies in a given case.]

Stempien is even more common, as of 1990 there were 1,163 Poles by that name and another 42,062 who spelled it Ste~pien~. I'm using e~ to stand for the Polish nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it, pronounced like en or, before b or p, like em; the n~ stands for n with an accent over it. So the name is pronounced roughly "STEMP-yen," and since that em sound can be written either e~ or em, you see it spelled either way; but the "correct" or standard spelling is Ste~pien~. Rymut says it probably comes from the archaic term ste~pien~ or wste~pien~, "newcomer to a group, next in line for a position of authority," from the basic root ste~p- meaning "step, pace." Some names beginning with Ste~p- come from ste~pnik, "worker who prepares material for processing in a mill [ste~pa]," so that might also be relevant -- but since this particular name matches the term ste~pien~ exactly, I think that's probably what it comes from. It, too, is common all over the country, but especially in south central and southeastern Poland.

Ignatius is the Latin form of the name Poles call Ignacy -- I just wanted to mention that so that if you run across that form, you will recognize it and have no doubt that the names are, indeed, equivalent.

Osiwala is a little tricky, because Osiwal~a could possibly be a variant of another name, or it could be an independent surname with its own meaning -- it could come from the verb osiwiec~, meaning "to turn grey." (By the way, I'm using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w). The -al~a suffix (also often seen as -ala or -alla) usually implies continual or repeated performance of the action, or manifestation of the trait, denoted by the first part of the name. Osiwal~a, in effect, would be a name given a person whose hair had turned grey, probably prematurely and due to worry and care. This is plausible. The only thing against this explanation is that we'd expect the form to be Osiwial~a, not Osiwal~a, that is, there really should be an extra -i- stuck in after the w. Also, it might be more likely to see the ending -y, not -a, on the name as borne by a man.

The other possibility is that it's a variant of Osiewal~a -- which, in fact, you mention as a form you've encountered -- and that comes from the verb osiewac~, "to sow, sift." Thus Osiewal~a would mean "the sifter, the sower."

As of 1990 there were 52 Poles with the name Osiwal~a, living in the following provinces: Warsaw 8, Jelenia Gora 6, Kalisz 5, Katowice 5, Konin 3, Lodz 18, Opole 2, Piotrkow 2, Zielona Gora 3. (Unfortunately I have no access to further details, such as first names or addresses; what I've given here is all I have.) There were 423 Osiewal~a's, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Kalisz (127), Lodz (81), and Sieradz (96), and less than 30 in several other provinces.

Since Osiewal~a is the more common name, it seems likely that Osiwal~a is just a variant form of it. The pronunciation of both is very similar, "oh-shee-VAH-wah" (Osiwal~a) vs. "oh-sheh-VAH-wah" (Osiewal~a), in other words the only difference is that in Osiwal~a that i is pronounced like our long e, in Osiewal~a the ie is pronounced like our short e. So that's the most likely derivation. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the possibility that, at least in some cases, Osiwal~a might be a name in its own right, meaning "one whose hair has turned grey."

Even if you wrote Polish name experts, I'm not sure they could answer this question for you without detailed information on your specific family. So what I suggest is that you continue your research -- obviously concentrating on the region of Lodz, since your facts and the data above suggest that's one of the main places this name is found -- and see which form predominates in the records. If you see it spelled Osiwal~a or Osiwial~a more often than not, it may refer to a grey-haired person. But if Osiewal~a is the form you encounter more often, that "sow, sift" root is probably the right derivation. All things being equal, that's the one I'd put my money on... If you would like to write name experts in Poland and get their opinion, see the Introduction to my page on Polish surnames, specifically the paragraph on the Pracownia Antroponimiczna in Krakow.

Dl~utowski (the l~ standing for the Polish l with a slash through it) is not all that common in Poland, but as of 1990 there were 297 Poles by that name; the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (81), Ciechanow (70), and Wroclaw (36) smaller numbers in several other provinces. The name probably comes in most cases from villages named Dl~utów, Dl~utowo, Dl~utowek, etc. There are at least 8 places by thos names, all of which could yield Dl~utowski as a name for a person from there. The place names are thought to come from the term dl~uto, "chisel, engraver's tool." In some cases the surname Dl~utowski might also have started as meaning something like "kin of the engraver." Hope this is some help!

According to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, the name Pysz shows up in records as early as 1389, and comes from the root seen in the words pycha, "pride, conceit," pyszny, "proud, haughty," and pysznic~ sie~, "to strut, put on airs." As of 1990 there were 1,033 Polish citizens named Pysz, living all over the country, but with the largest numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (395), Katowice (161), in southcentral Poland, and Przemysl (43), Rzeszow (78), and Tarnobrzeg (39) in southeastern Poland. (Unfortunately, I don't have access to more details such as first names and addresses). The area of main concentration does coincide pretty well with western Galicia, as you expected.

Lichniak is a real name, although not a particularly common one -- as of 1990 there were only 81 Polish citizens named Lichniak. They lived in the provinces of Warsaw (52), Jelenia Gora (1), Siedlce (20), Skierniewice (2), and Suwalki (6) -- unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses... If I'm not mistaken, Nowominsk would be the town now called Minsk Mazowiecki, in Warsaw province -- this area was under Russian rule for most of the 19th century until about 1918. So the facts fit together pretty well, and it seems likely some or most of the 52 Lichniak's in Warsaw province are relatives.

I wouldn't think Lichniak is a name most people would make up or voluntarily adopt, because the root lich- means "bad, evil" in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, etc.; in Polish it means "bad" less in the sense of "evil" than in the sense of "miserable, shoddy, lousy." The -iak suffix usually means "son of" in names, so Lichniak would seem to mean "son of the miserable one." I guess a black sheep might take a name like that, just to spite people or be different. But it's not a name most people would go out of their way to adopt, so I'd be inclined to think it's real and treat it as such until you have good reason to think it's made up.

I'm starting to get a little angry -- I hear fairly often from people whom some "expert" has misled with information that is completely wrong. I don't who these experts are, but they should shut the hell up!

To start with, as of 1990 there were 1,030 Polish citizens named L~uc -- I'd like to see these experts go tell those 1,030 folks they're not Poles! The largest concentration by far was in the province of Przemysl (349) in southeastern Poland, but there were much smaller numbers scattered all over the country -- the more significant numbers were in the provinces of Katowice (66), Legnica (73), Poznan (48), Wroclaw (57), all the rest were much smaller numbers.

As for L~uc not being in any surname book, that's also a load of crap -- the book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles] by Kazimierz Rymut, who's probably the foremost Polish name expert, lists it. While I can't blame someone for not knowing of this book, anyone not familiar with Rymut's work has no business pretending he/she knows anything about Polish names! It's like pretending to be an expert on physics without ever having bothered to read Einstein.

According to Rymut, L~uc could have come from several different roots. Probably the most likely derivation is as a short form of such popular first names as L~ukasz (Luke, Lucas), L~ucja (Lucy), and L~ucjan (Lucian); it might also, in some cases, derive from the root l~uk, "bow, arch," seen also in the verb l~uczyc~, "to aim at." I would also mention the German name Lutz, which derives from the first name Ludwig (Louis); Poles might turn that into L~uc.

All in all, I'd expect the name L~uc would usually have started as a shortened form of a first name; we see this all the time in surname origins, and it seems likely here. If the family was pretty much Polish in ethnic origin, the most likely name involved would be L~ukasz; L~ucjan is less common, but is a viable candidate; surnames were less often formed from women's names, so I think L~ucja is a bit of a long-shot. If the family had some German blood or lived in areas where German had some influence, it might be a Polonized form of Lutz from Ludwig. But derivation from a first name seems more likely than from the root for "bow, arch."

Mróz is pronounced roughly "m’rooz" in Polish, and it is indeed a common surname -- as of 1990 there were 24,134 Polish citizens named Mróz, living in large numbers all over the country. The name is seen in documents as far back as 1377, so it is quite old. I don't know much about coats of arms, so I can't tell you whether there is a Mróz coat of arms, and I tend to doubt it's 1,000 years old -- that seems pushing it a little. But no question the name has been around a long, long time.

In most cases this name would come from the Polish word mróz, "frost." Some names beginning with Mroz- can also come from a short form or nickname of the first name Ambroz*y (= Ambrose), so we can't rule out the possibility the Mróz might also have originated that way in some cases. But obviously there is no one Mróz family, there are many families with the name that developed independently; in some cases the "Ambrose" connection may account for the name, but I suspect in most cases it is the "frost" connection that is relevant.

If you'd like to learn more about whether there is a Mróz coat of arms, and how old it is, you might want to contact Leonard Suligowski, the Director of Heraldry for the Polish Nobility Association Foundation and editor of their Journal, "White Eagle." Leonard doesn't do genealogical research, he's a heraldic artist, but he has an extensive library on the subject of European and especially Polish heraldry. For a very reasonable fee he will see what info he can extract from all his armorials and pass it on to you -- some folks even engage him to paint their arms. If you're interested, his address is: Leonard Suligowski, 218A N. Henry St., Brooklyn, NY 11222.