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

… Thank you again for the information on the name Drazba. There are 2 more names I would like some information on. Chuchro/Huchro and Pietrylka/Petrylka.

The standard form of the name is Chuchro, but since Polish ch and h are pronounced the same, Huchro is a perfectly understandable variant spelling; both are pronounced roughly "khookh-row," where kh stands for the guttural sound of ch in German Bach. It appears to come from the term chuchro, "weakling, frail person." As of 1990 there were 563 Poles by this name (vs. 14 who spelled it Huchro). The largest numbers of Chuchro's lived in the provinces of Katowice (132) and Krakow (90) in southcentral Poland, with much smaller numbers scattered in many other provinces.

Pietryl~ka (where I'm using l~ to stand for the l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w) is a very rare name today in Poland; as of 1990 there were only 4 Poles by that name, all living in Krosno province in the southeastern corner of the country. The form Petryl~ka was borne by 17 Poles, in the provinces of Jelenia Gora (4), Krosno (11), Zielona Gora (2). None of my sources mention it, but it seems likely to derive from a nickname from Piotr, "Peter." Judging by where it appears in post-war Poland and the Piet-/Pet- spelling variation, I strongly suspect it is of Ukrainian origin rather than Polish, and might be a bit more common in Ukraine -- however, I have no data for that country and thus cannot be sure.

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To: ECR MKTG@aol.com, who wrote:

… If you discuss any of the names listed below in your book, please let me know and I will be happy to purchase a copy. Any direction you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but in at least 90% of cases there is nothing about a surname that indicates anything useful in tracing the family. Thus Cebula comes from the word for "onion," and as of 1990 there were 9,868 Poles with this name, living all over the country. Presumably it originated as a nickname for a person who grew onions, or liked to eat them, or was shaped like them, something like that, then later it stuck as a surname. Clearly this isn't going to help you discover where any particular family named Cebula lived.

Similarly, Noworolnik comes from noworola, literally "new field," often used for "field plowed just before spring sowing," or in some cases from nowy + rolnik," literally a "new farmer." A Noworolnik got that name because he was farming a "new field," and as of 1990 there were 486 Poles by that name; the largest numbers were in the provinces of Lublin (122), and Nowy Sacz (163), but that doesn't really tell you anything you didn't already know. (I'm afraid I don't have access to details such as first names and addresses, what I give here is all I have)... The info that your maternal grandparents' family came from Tylmanowa, near Nowy Targ in the province of Nowy Sacz in southcentral Poland (it's 20-30 km. WSW of Nowy Sacz), is far more helpful than anything I can tell you about any of the surnames. Tylmanowa is big enough to have its own Catholic parish church, which is where people living in the vicinity would have gone to register births, deaths, and marriages; if the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah has microfilmed its records, that's the place to start trying to trace them.

Bentkoski is a variant of the name Bentkowski (1,426 in 1990) or Be~tkowski (1,501) -- these are the same name spelled differently, because the vowel I'm writing here as e~ is a nasal vowel, an e with a tail under it, pronounced like en, so that either spelling is phonetically correct, although the spelling with e~ is usually standard these days. Names ending in -owski usually refer to a place, so that this one refers to a family's origin in any of several places named Be~dkowice, Be~dkowo, or Be~dków. Be~dkowice in Krakow province might be a good bet, since this is in southcentral Poland, which seems to be the area your roots might lie in; this village has its own Catholic parish church, so with any luck the records might have been microfilmed by the LDS.

Chlebek means literally "little bread," and as of 1990 there were 963 Poles by that name, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice 220, Nowy Sacz 198, Rzeszow 108 in southcentral and southeastern Poland.

Czubski comes either from czub, "hair on top of the head," or from czubic~ sie~, "to quarrel." It might also refer to origin in a place with a name beginning in Czub-, e. g., Czuby in Lublin province, and a place with such a name derives from the roots given above. As of 1990 there were 209 Poles with this name, and the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Katowice 112 and Walbrzych 36, with much smaller numbers scattered in many other provinces.

Kasprzak means "little Casper, son of Casper," and there were 16,744 Poles by that name in 1990. As with most surnames from popular first names, this one is common all over the country; there isn't one big Kasprzak family, but dozens or hundreds of individual ones that all came by the name independently, because around the time surnames were being established, a Kasper or Kacper was prominent enough that his kin were referred to by his name.

Ligas probably comes from the verb ligac~, "to kick or lie down," compare the term lige~za, "one who loves to lie around," so Ligas too may have started as a nickname for a rather easy-going fellow. As of 1990 there were 687 Poles by this name, with the largest number by far, 290, in the province Nowy Sacz.

In Zabreskiego the -ego is just an ending dictated by grammar in certain circumstances, so you drop it when looking for the standard form. This is almost certainly a simplified spelling of Zabrzeski, "one from Zabrzez*"; in this case the probable reference is to the village Zabrzez* (dot over the final z) in Nowy Sacz province, maybe 5 km. north of Tylmanowa. There are other places with names that could produce this surname, but with the info on your family's roots this is the most likely. Notice again, the surname by itself is useless, but if you have reason to believe the family came from a clearly defined area, you can look for places in that area that match up, with reasonable chances of success.

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To: Lech Stepkowski, stona@polbox.com, who wrote:

… Please send me any remarks on the surname I hold, i.e.: Stêpkowski (the third letter of it may be correctly seen using Central European Windows fonts).

Usually those of us whose machines are not configured for Polish characters use e~ to stand for the nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced like en in most cases, but like em before a b or p. But in this note I’ll use ê so it will show up correctly on your computer.

According to onomastics expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut, the name Stêpkowski comes ultimately from the Old Polish root stêpka, "a small stêpa"; he defines stêpa as "urzadzenie do tluczenia, ubijania." In English I rendered this as a "mill for crushing grain, ore, etc." It often happens that names ending in -owski refer to place of origin in a village with a similar name, such as Stêpki, Stêpkowo, etc., and those places got their names because of some association with such mills. I can find no places by such names on the maps I have, but that is not unusual. Surnames generally developed at least two centuries ago, often much earlier, and the places they referred could be quite small, unlikely to appear on maps, or may have disappeared or changed names in the centuries since then.

This is a moderately common surname in Poland: as of 1990 there were 2,142 Polish citizens named Stêpkowski. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Warszawa (353), Ciechanow (270), Krakow (104), and Wloclawek (102), but there were smaller numbers in virtually every province (for instance there were 57 in Lodz province). Unfortunately, my source for this information, Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, does not give further information such as first names and addresses, so this is all the data I have access to.

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To: Sandra Lux, delux@jaguarsystems.com, who wrote:

… Roman is the name of my Grandfather and Anthony is his first name, they came to the USA from Poland around late 1890's and settled in Pennsylvania. My Grandmother came from a small provence near Warsaw, but there is no one alive to tell me the name or even her maiden name, I am trying to establish a family history...Thank you for your help...

I wish I could help you, but I'm afraid Roman is too common a surname to offer much help. As of 1990 there were 5,730 Polish citizens named Roman, living all over the country -- there is no one particular area where this name is concentrated. It comes from the first name Roman, from Latin Romanus, "Roman, citizen of Rome," and also from the Roman coat of arms. The name appears in records as far back as the 1400's.

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To: Ellen Graham, egraham@millennium-tech.net, who wrote:

… I'm very actively researching my maternal grandfathers family, the Nadaners, and have recently connected with two separate Nadaner families... The first translation of Nadaner yielded 'Talented', the second was 'nice, pretty'.

Linguistically speaking, Nadaner is a distinctively Yiddish form, created by adding the Yiddish-German suffix -er to the archaic Polish adjective nadany, in form a participle from the verb nadac~. The translations "talented" and "nice, pretty" come from efforts to render the meaning of nadany in English: the word means literally "on-given, to-given," in the sense of "one to whom [desirable qualities] have been given." The English words "talented, nice, pretty" correspond fairly well to the meanings this word had in Polish (as I say, it's archaic now). In some ways nadany is best defined in terms of its antonym, nienadany, where nie- is the negative particle meaning "not, non-"; the term nienadany was used to mean "barbaric, wild, uncivilized." This suggests nadany was used as a positive description for someone comely, attractive, desirable.

I can't add much more; my main source of information for Jewish names is Alexander Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland, and from the info you gave I'm fairly certain you've consulted this work at some point. About the only thing I can add is that as of 1990 there was no longer anyone named Nadaner living in Poland; there were still some who bore the native Polish forms Nadany and Nadana, but no Nadaner, at least not within the limits of accuracy of the database maintained by the PESEL Government Information Center.

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To: Robert.Protzman@akzonobel.com, who wrote:

… I would appreciate any information on the meaning or origin of my grandmother's maiden name [Woyczynski].

The Polish spelling of the name is Wojczyn~ski, where n~ is how we represent on-line the Polish n with an accent over it; the name is pronounced roughly "voy-CHIN-skee." As of 1990 there were 268 Polish citizens by this name, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Kalisz (221), Pila (103), and Poznan (52) and smaller numbers (fewer than 20) in many other provinces. So this name is most common in west central Poland -- but the data does not allow us to narrow the focus to any particular area.

Names ending in -ski are adjectives, and Wojczyn~ski literally means "of, from, pertaining to wojczyn," so the question is what that means. The ultimate root of is probably woj, "warrior," with wojczyn either as meaning "son of the warrior" or a nickname from old Polish first names such as Wojciech, Wojslaw, etc. Actually, I would expect Wojczyn~ski, like most names ending in -in~ski and -yn~ski, to have referred to a place named for a warrior or a Wojciech, Wojslaw, etc., thus meaning something like "one from Wojczyn or Wojcza"; there is a village Wójcza in Kielce province, at least some Wojczyn~ski's probably got their name because they came from this place.

There are also at least 5 villages called Wójcin, and since the letter combinations -cin and -czyn in Polish sound similar ("cheen" vs. "chin"), it is possible Wojczyn~ski might also have referred to those places, "one from Wójcin." This place name could come from that first name Wojciech, but could also come from the word wó~jt, a kind of village mayor; so Wójcin can mean "the place of the wójt" and Wójcin~ski "one from Wójcin = one from the place of the wójt." It's a bit of a reach from Wójcin~ski to Wojczyn~ski, but I can't rule it out; there probably are at least a few cases where the two names were confused.

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To Joseph Martin, Joseph3030@AOL.COM, who wrote:

… I have come across these two names in my family. They seem unusual. Does anyone know if Fujara is actually Polish? That is the exact spelling on a good number of clear records.

Fujara can be Polish, there were 85 Polish citizens by that name as of 1990, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (32) and Przemysl (16). It almost certainly comes from the word fujara, "pipe," the sinple musical instrument, with a secondary meaning of "nincompoop, goof-off." I think the connection is a fujara is "the kind of fellow who sits around tootling while all us poor slobs are working our butts off, damn him (and how come I don't get to do that?)." My big dictionary says the ultimate source of the word is Romanian fluera, and I'm rather proud of the fact that when I first read your note I thought, "Hmm, sounds Romanian." (If I'm so smart, why ain't I rich?)

Does Szwaia fall into Polish names? It is written exceptionally well on one record so the spelling cannot be denied.

This is in the book, but not in that spelling. As the notes on p. 11 of the book indicate, J and I and Y were often interchangeable in older Polish spelling; these days the standard spelling of this name would be Szwaja. I couldn't find discussion of this name by any Polish expert, but there is a word szwaja, a contemptuous term for "seamstress,

neadlewoman," and I strongly suspect that's the source of the surname. As of 1990 there were 1,096 Szwaja's in Poland, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Czestochowa (155), Katowice (136), Kielce (129), Krakow (93); so it's found most often in southcentral Poland.

Don't be bothered that neither of these terms is particularly complimentary. Compared to a lot of Polish names, ones meaning "nincompoop" and "seamstress" are mild!

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To: John Kazimierz Dytrych: [E-mail address inadvertently deleted]

… Since the birth of my son I've developed an interest in trying to trace our family tree, but I must admit I am not getting very far as records are very thin on the ground. My father was born in Poland but lived out his years in England after the war. I would be grateful if you could offer me any advice on the origins of our surname.

Congratulations on the birth of your son!

Dytrych is a Polish version of the German first name Dietrich; the German name is pronounced roughly "DEET-rick," whereas this Polish version (there are others) sounds more like "DITT-rick," with that first vowel a short i rather than a long e. This name is of ancient origin, from back in the days before Germans and Poles etc. were Christianized -- parents would give their children names of good omen, based on what they hoped the child would grow up to be (or naming them after a famous person who bore that name). The ancient Germanic roots in this name mean "people" and "rule," so that we might interpret the name as "ruler of the people" = "may he grow up to rule the people" (the second element is also seen in "Friedrich" [Frederick], "peaceful ruler," "may he rule in peace").

There were a great many ethnic Germans who came to live in Poland, often invited by land-owning nobles who wanted skilled farmers and craftsmen to help repopulate areas devastated by the Black Death and other catastrophes. So it's not at all rare to see names of German origin in Poland. The family bearing this name, after a while, probably thought of themselves as Poles and didn't even think about how their ancestors were actually Germans. Millions those who did continue to identify themselves as German, or who had distinctively German names, moved out of Poland after World War II, afraid to go on living there after what the Nazis did to the Poles during the war.

Dytrych is still a moderately common name in Poland, as of 1990 there were 588 Polish citizens by this name, scattered in small numbers all over the country. I'm afraid there's nothing about its frequency or distribution that offers any really helpful clues as to what part of Poland families by this name might have come from; they could have lived anywhere in the old Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. I know this may be disappointing, perhaps you were hoping the name would give a clue; but in all honesty I'd estimate some 90% of Polish names don't provide any kind of useful lead. I'm afraid usually the only thing that helps is digging in naturalization records, ship passenger lists, church records, etc.

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To: Jessie A. Siedlecki, BMWfl@aol.com, who wrote:

… I would appreciate it if you could search my last name, Siedlecki.

Siedlecki is one of many Polish surnames coming from place names, generally indicating that the family in question came from or was otherwise connected to a place with a name like Siedlce or Siedlec. If the family was noble, it meaned at one time they owned a village or estate by those names; if the family was not noble, they probably worked the fields at such a place, or at one time lived there and later moved elsewhere, so that it made sense to distinguish them by calling them "the ones from Siedlce/Siedlec." That's really all Siedlecki means, it's an adjectival form meaning "of, from, pertaining to Siedlce or Siedlec." It's pronounced in Polish something like "shed-LET-skee."

There at least a dozen places in Poland with those names. The largest and best known is Siedlce in east central Poland, big enough to be the capital of its own province; but there are several other Siedlce's and quite a few Siedlec's. All of these place names derive ultimately from a Polish root siedl- meaning "settle" (it's not an accident the Polish and English roots sound similar, if you go back far enough they came from the same original root in Indo-European). Usually what happened is that back in the old days before Poles accepted Christianity, they named their children with names formed by sticking two roots together to express a good omen or hoped-for success, much as German Friedrich means "peace+rule" = "peaceful ruler." For instance, there was an old Polish name Siedlewit, and the roots in question are siedl-, "settle, seat" + wit, "master, lord," thus "lord of the settlement," expressing a hope that the child would be the master of the place where he lived. Then later Poles abbreviated the name and added suffixes (much as we turned "Theodore" into "Teddy"). Siedlec and Siedlce both would mean something like "the place of Siedl," and Siedlecki just means "one from the place of Siedl."

As of 1990 there were 7,786 Polish citizens named Siedlecki, living all over the country, so it's a pretty common name. And it's so widely distributed that you can't trace it back to any one place and say "That's where it came from." The only way to figure out which particular Siedlec or Siedlce your family came from would be to trace the family's roots back to Poland, pinpoint exactly what area they came from, and then look for a Siedlec or Siedlce nearby. Even that's not foolproof, because these names originated centuries ago, and a lot has changed over the ages. But that would be the only way to even hazard a good guess on which particular place a given family came from.

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To: Czeslaw Wicherek, c.wicherek@itd.maff.gov.uk, who wrote:

… Hello. My name is Czeslaw Wicherek and my family come from the Polish part of Silesia and are fiercely Polish. However, I can find no reference to the name anywhere and now not in your list… Do you know if my name is a form of any other name or anything about it, or could you advise me where to look. Any assistance you could give would be much appreciated.

Well, according to the series Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, a 10-volume set edited by Prof. Kazimierz Rymut of the Instytut Jezyka Polskiego PAN in Krakow, as of 1990 there were some 800,000+ surnames used by Poles! Obviously many of these were very rare or were closely related variants of others -- e. g. Kamien~ski vs. Kamin~ski, or Wicher vs. Wicherek vs. Wicherski -- but there were still more than 40,000 borne by 100 or more Poles. So neither my book nor my Webpage can begin to cover them all! That's why there are a great many names that don't appear in that list.

According to Prof. Rymut's book Nazwiska Polaków, the name Wicherek comes from the term wicher, "wind," or especially wicherek, "little wind, breeze," and appears in Polish documents as early as 1401. He does not discuss exactly how a family might come to get such a name, and in fact even the best experts can't always say how such a thing happened; humans are very ingenious in the names they give each other, and most of these names are many centuries old, so it can be difficult to analyze the exact origin. A name like this might have once been given someone because he was born on a breezy day and got the name to commemorate that; or perhaps he lived in an area that was always breezy. About the most we can say is that the name originally was given because of some connection to wind or breeze, and may have started as a nickname that later became established as a surname.

As of the year 1990 there were 552 Polish citizens named Wicherek. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (189), Katowice (103), and Poznan (88), with much smaller numbers in many other provinces. So the name is most common in southcentral Poland, in or just east of Silesia, depending on exactly how you define "Silesia." Unfortunately I have no access to further details such as first names and addresses.

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To Robert Ostrycharz, robert.ostrycharz@DIAL.PIPEX.COM, who wrote:

… Could someone help me to explain the meaning if any of the surname Gierasik.

This is a diminutive form of the name first name Gieras or Gierasz, so that it would mean something like "little Gieras" or "son of Gieras." That first name arose as a short form or nickname of the Polish forms of such first names such as Gerard or Gerald, possibly even Gertrude. These names generally started as Germanic names from pagan days, when instead of naming children after Christian saints, parents gave them native names of good omen; thus Gerard comes from Germanic roots ger, "spear" + hart, "strong" = "may he be strong in use of the spear," in other words, "may he be a valiant warrior." Or Gerald is from ger + walt-, "rule," "spear ruler," "may he rule with the spear." In Polish the combination Ge- tends to become Gie-, so we see such forms as Gieralt and Gierard; most scholars seem to think Gerard is the one Gieras came from. The process of forming a new name or nickame by taking the first part of a popular name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes is seen in English, too, e. g., "Teddy" from "Theodore." So Gierasik would be a sort of Polish equivalent to "son of Jerry" in English.

That's what Polish scholars mention. To me it also seems possible the name might occasionally come from Gierasym, a Polish form of the Ukrainian name Harasym, from Greek gerasimos, from a root meaning "prize, award." Probably among ethnic Poles, however, the connection with "Gerard" or "Gerald" would hold true more often.

As of 1990 there were only 37 Polish citizens named Gierasik, living in the provinces of Warsaw (17), Bialystok (2), Bydgoszcz (6, Gdansk (7), and Skierniewice (5). Unfortunately I don't have access to further data such as first names, addresses, etc. What I've given here is all I have.

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To: tomats142@aol.com, who wrote:

… I am searching for information on the Polish name Brudnicki.

This name is one of many Polish surnames that indicate a family's connection with a place of similar name; we would expect Brudnicki to mean something like "one from Brudnice or Brudnica." There are at least three places in Poland that could generate this surname, Brudnice in Ciechanow province, Brudnice in Plock province, and a village that no longer exists, Dramino Brudnycze in Goleszyn parish of Sierpc county. There may have been more that have since been renamed or disappeared, but persons connected with these three villages could easily have ended up with the name Brudnicki, "one from Brudnice." The ultimate root of the place names is brud, "dirt, filth," but the surname would probably not mean "dirty one, filthy one" but rather "one from Brudnice," and that place, in turn, got its name from that root. It's worth noting that the Brudnice in Ciechanow province is thought to have been called Brodnica originally, so it's possible in some cases this surname might be a variant of Brodnicki ("one from Brodnica," and there are at least 8 towns and villages by that name); but it would be stretching things to assume that line in regard to a particular Brudicki family without a lot more evidence.

As of 1990 there were 1,123 Polish citizens named Brudnicki, of whom the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Konin (91), Lodz (62), Pila (222), Radom (79), Szczecin (76), Warsaw (69), and Wloclawek (99), with smaller numbers in a great many other provinces. So there's nothing really helpful about the frequency and distribution pattern of the name; it's seen all over the country. But generally you'd expect it started out as referring to a place named Brudnica, Brodnica, or Brudnice, with the latter as the most likely connection.

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To: Theresa A. Simpson, ltjsimpson@ieo.com, who wrote:

… I started this for my niece, but I've found myself wanting to learn more. Is there any way you can help me find any information on my grandparents' names. All four came from Poland. We'd like to know their history, if any. Names are as follows: Cichowski, Tobaczewski, Napierkowski, Mikulski.

Names ending in -owski and -ewski usually started as references to a connection between a family and a place with a similar name. Thus Cichowski probably means "one from Cichów or Cichowo or Cichy"; there are at least two villages named Cichów, a couple named Cichowo, as well as the village of Cichy in Suwalki province. These place names in turn come from the adjective cichy, "quiet, still, calm." As of 1990 there were 3,435 Polish citizens named Cichowski, and there is no way to know which particular place a given Cichowski family came from without detailed research establishing exactly which part of Poland they came from.

Mikulski is the most common of the names you mentioned, as of 1990 there were 9,693 Poles named Mikulski, living all over the country. It comes from a variant form of the first name Mikol~aj = Nicholas. The name may have started meaning "kin of Nicholas," or it may have referred to a place named for a Nicholas, for instance, there are at least two villages named Mikulice, and the surname might also refer to them. So obviously there isn't one Mikulski family, there are lots of different families that ended up with this name because they were named for a prominent member named Mikula or came from a place named for such a person. One of the U. S. Senators from Maryland is Barbara Mikulski, and she played a major role in Poland’s acceptance into NATO.

As of 1990 there were 218 Poles named Napierkowski, scattered all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Leszno (43), Ostroleka (63), and Poznan (49). This surname might refer to is Napierki in Olsztyn province, and that place name derives from the root napierac~, to press, urge, advance.

Tobaczewski presumably refers to a place named something like Tobaczewo or Tobaczew. I can't find any places by those names, but these surnames typically developed centuries ago, and since then the places they referred to may have disappeared, been absorbed by other communities, or changed their name. The name probably comes from a short form or nickname of the Biblical first name Tobias, so that Tobaczewski may have meant "kin of Tobias" or "one from the place of Tobias." The surname is pretty rare, as of 1990 there were only 21 Poles by this name, living in the provinces of Szczecin (12) and Zielona Gora (9). I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses.

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To: MadHat5047@aol.com, who wrote:

… My maternal grandmother, Helena Olszewska (1894-1964), came from a town called "Ruda" according to the naturalization papers of her husband Frank Podwoiski (1894-1954). She allegedly arrived in the U.S. in 1909, but I have not been able to find her on any passenger list. I did find his name for 1912, and he was Lithuanian descent{Pudvolskas??}. Any ideas where "Ruda" is/was???? "A small town near the border; close by there was a forest with many mushrooms", is the family legend of her origins.

I am afraid I can't help you much. Olszewska is simply a feminine form of Olszewski, that's considered the standard form of the name, and it is an extremely common one, borne by 44,638 Poles as of 1990. It just means "one from Olszew or Olszewa or Olszewo," and those place names mean "place of the alder trees." As for Ruda, there are at least 50 villages by that name on my maps, and probably more too small to show up on my maps, so I'm afraid that's no help either; the word ruda means "ore," and this name was often given to any little community that originated as a place for mining ore or working with metal.

Podwoiski is probably Podwojski in standard spelling. As of 1990 there were 156 Poles by that name, scattered all over Poland; it comes from the word podwojski, "court crier, beadle," according to Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut. According to the best work available on Lithuanian surnames, Podvaiskas or Padvaiskas is the Lithuanian form, and it comes from that Polish word podwojski. There are and long have been a great many Poles living in Lithuania -- that's where my wife's Polish relatives live. So even though her husband came from Lithuania, he may have been a Pole by blood, or else was a Lithuanian who took a Polish name; for a long time the Lithuanian nobility considered it more fashionable to go by Polish names, and that preference filtered on down to the peasant as well, so this is feasible.

I'm sorry I couldn't help more, but the truth is 95% of Polish names don't offer any real help with tracing the family. If you know a lot about where the family lived, sometimes a surname will give you a clue to some background; but if all you have is the surname, very seldom does it lead you to a specific place or time.

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To: NFatouros@aol.com, who wrote:

… Recently, after I had sent in to GenPol a probably too long post about a recent bit of information I'd received, concerning in part, the name Gagorwoski" I received a message suggesting that I write you. Can you tell me anything about this name?

Well, none of my sources say anything about this name, but as of 1990 there were 473 Polish citizens named Ga~gorowski, using a~ to stand for the Polish nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it and pronounced much like on in French bon. They were scattered all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (51), Kielce (110), and Wroclaw (70). So this is a legitimate, established name.

The probable derivation is from the Polish word ga~gor, a variant or dialect word meaning "gander" (comparable to the standard terms ge~ga, "goose," and ga~sior, "gander"). The name presumably started out meaning "of, from, pertaining to the [place/kin] of the gander(s)," either in the sense "one from Ga~gorów or Ga~gorowo" or "kin of the gander" (referring to a goose-herder?). I can't find any mention of a village by these names, but surnames typically developed centuries ago, and often the places they referred to have since disappeared, changed names, been absorbed by other communities, or something of the sort.

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To: Ron Prishivalko, ronp@erols.com, who wrote:

… In both cases - my wife's and mine - these belong to grandparents from Przasnysz. Any background and meanings would be appreciated.

Szczepan~ski (in Polish spelled with an accent over the n and pronounced roughly "shcheh-PINE-skee") is an adjective in form, meaning "of, from, related to Szczepan," which is one of the Polish forms of the name "Stephen." So in many cases this name means simply "kin of Szczepan," in some other cases it might mean "one from the place of Szczepan" where that place was once owned or founded by a prominent Szczepan and bears a name such as Szczepanki or Szczepanowo, something like that. It's a very common name, as of 1990 there were 31,208 Polish citizens named Szczepan~ski, living all over the country.

Majkowski is less common, but still pretty common -- as of 1990 there were 5,085 Majkowski's in Poland. This name is also adjectival in origin, meaning roughly "of, from, pertaining to the __ of Majek," where you fill in the blank with word so obvious it doesn't need to be spelled out, usually either "place" or "kin." So Majkowski could mean "kin of Majek," but especially "one from Majk, Majki, Majków." There are several places in Poland that have these names, and the surname is common all over the country, so I'm afraid this name doesn't give much in the way of clues as to where a family came from. However, since you have information leading to the Przasnysz area, it makes sense to suggest the surname referred to one of two villages in Ostroleka province, not far from Przasnysz. Majki-Tykiewki is the name of a village about 25 km. due east of Przasnysz, and Majk is about the same distance northeast of Przasnysz. It's not certain the surname refers to one of these places, but it seems a pretty decent bet... The Majk- root comes from an old first name derived from maj, "May," probably given a child in memory of the month he was born in.

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To: email removed as requested by correspondent, who wrote:

… I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the following names I am searching in South-Eastern Poland: Lo"wenthal, Tepper (or any related names, such as Toepfer, Topper), Lauberfeld, Orling, and Bierfass.

As I'm sure you realize, all these names are of Germanic origin, which is not unusual -- large numbers of Germans, and of Jews who spoke German or Yiddish, settled all over Poland, including the southeastern part of the country. I have sources such as Alexander Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland and his similar work for the Russian Empire, plus books on German names, and they give some insights into the meanings of these names. But the only data I have on frequency and distribution of names in Poland comes from 1990 data, and I'm afraid the Holocaust and post-World War II relocation of Germans from Poland to East Germany greatly distort that data. Thus Teper is the only one of these names borne by any Polish citizens as of 1990; there were 1,038 Teper's, living all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Katowice (247), Kielce (68), Krakow (55), Lublin (91), Nowy Sacz (74), and Warsaw (56), and smaller numbers in virtually every other province. Before 1939 there may well have been people with the other names living in Poland, but I have no way of determining how many there were or where they might have lived.

Here's what I came up with on the meanings of the names:

Bierfass: comes from the German words for "beer" and "barrel," thus might refer to someone who made barrels or was otherwise connected with brewing and storing or selling beer. The name could also be used, presumably, as a kind of insulting nickname for a person who drank a lot of beer or was rather fat, shaped like a beer barrel.

Lauberfeld: probably comes from Laub, "leaf, foliage, arbor" + Feld, "field," and thus referred to a place the family lived, literally "leaf field."

Löwenthal: comes from the German words for "lion" and "valley," and presumably referred originally to a place the family came from or lived. As of 1990 there were 9 Poles who used the Polish phonetic spelling of Lewental, living in the provinces of Krakow (6) and Walbrzych (3) -- I'm afraid I have no access to further details such as first names or addresses.

Orling: I could find nothing on this name. The root Orl- appears in Jewish names sometimes as a form derived from the first name "Aaron," and this might be relevant here. The root Orl- also appears in names of Polish origin as a form of the word for "eagle," but that usage is inconsistent with the form of this name.

Tepper: this and the other variants of the name you mention all come either from German Töpfer or the Yiddish equivalent teper, "potter."

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To: Shelley R. Greenleaf, sgreenle@TTACS.TTU.EDU, who wrote:

… If you have the time, I'm curious about my maiden name, Janiczek.

Janiczek means basically "son of little John." Jan is the Polish form of the name "John," and if you add the patronymic suffix -icz to it you have Janicz, "son of John." But Poles love to add suffixes, and once the name Janicz existed it was only a matter of time before we had Janiczek, formed by adding a diminutive suffix, -ek, to that name. So it's Jan + -icz- + -ek = Janiczek, "son of the son of John," or "little John's son." This surname appears in Polish legal records as far back as 1567. As of 1990 there were 1,520 Polish citizens by this name, living all over the country -- after all, the name could get started anywhere they spoke Polish and there were guy's name "Jan" who had sons.

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To: email removed as requested by correspondent, who wrote:

… I would like to find out more about the orgins of my last name (Mudry). [removed] My mother's maiden name is Jablonska and I've been told that my grandfather Stanislaw Jablonski might have had noble roots.

In the Slavic languages the root mudr- means "wise, clever, intelligent"; we see the adjective mudry with that meaning in Russian and Ukrainian. The vowel changes slightly in some of the Slavic languages, thus it is moudry in Czech, and in Polish it takes the form of the nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it, pronounced much like "own" -- on-line we write is as ma~dry to represent the nasal vowel. So in all the Slavic languages the name means pretty much the same thing. Furthermore, the actual form of the name gives a general hint where it originated. If your ancestors had been ethnic Poles, or had lived in a predominantly Polish linguistic environment, we would expect the name to be Ma~dry. The fact that it is Mudry suggests a Russian or Belarusian or Ukrainian influence -- possibly also Czech with modification. There are several places called Brzeg in Poland, so I don't know which area your family came from, but it's not at all rare to see non-Polish versions of Slavic names in Poland. To a Pole Mudry sounds a little foreign, but still Slavic and thus not hard to understand or requiring change.

As of 1990 there were 146 Polish citizens named Mudry, and 44 more with the feminine form of the name Mudra. Of the Mudry's, the largest numbers lived in the provinces of Katowice (13), Opole (35), Wroclaw (21), and Zieona Gora (13). I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses, this is all I have.

Jabl~on~ski is an exceedingly common name from the root jabl~on~, "apple-tree" (the l~ stands for the Polish l with a slash through it, pronounced like our w, and the n~ stands for the Polish accented n); the name is pronounced roughly "yah-BWOIN-skee" in Polish. As of 1990 there were 46,728 Poles by that name, living in large numbers all over the country. There probably were Jabl~on~ski's of noble blood, but I'm afraid I have no information on that.

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To: Jacek.Rutkowski@quantum.de, who wrote (referring to a previous disagreement on Rutkowski):

… Thanks. OK, but still think that both explanations are correct and claiming that only one is valid is an oversimplification.

Ah, I think I understand better now what you wrote. (In case it is easier for you to read Polish, I repeat my comments below in Polish. I read Polish better than I write, but Poles tell me my Polish is not bad, so I hope you will understand it.)

On the Web-page I have to discuss names in general, I don't have enough time or space to discuss them in detail. I did not mean to exclude derivation of Rutkowski from rutka (according to Mr. Rutkowski, a term for a maiden gathering rue). I meant only that in most cases the surname probably comes from names of places such as Rutki or Rutkowo. However sometimes Rutkowski surely can come directly from rutka, but more often the surname comes from the place names. But what do the place names come from? Probably from rutka! Surely these places were called that because there were rutki there. So yes, Rutkowski can come from rutka, directly or indirectly. Most often, the surname indicates derivation from the place name, and the place name can come from rutka. (I cannot exclude possible derivation from the first name Rut, and even sometimes from Rudkowski). Or sometimes Rutkowski can come directly from rutka. The one thing that’s certain is that it refers to some kind of connection with rue -- perhaps with the place where it grew or was gathered, or perhaps with the girls who gathered it.

… Apart from them do you know something about my mother's name "Kinic" ???

In his book Nazwiska Polaków Prof. Kazimierz Rymut says names with Kin-, including Kinic, come from the old Polish verb kina~c~, "grow, boil, seethe" (rosnac~, kipiec~). Other Polish onomastics experts mention that it might also come sometimes from "Kin" as a short form of the first name Konrad. So Kinic could mean "son of Konrad," or it can mean "son of one who grows, boils, seethes." In 1990 there were 34 Poles named Kinic, living in the following provinces: Bielsko-Biala 4, Gdansk 3, Kalisz 2, Katowice 3, Koszalin 4, Lodz 2, Poznan 12, Sieradz 1, Szczecin 2, Wloclawek 1.

[PO POLSKU]

Ah, ja wierze, ze teraz rozumiem lepiej to, co Pan napisal. (Powtarzam swoje notatki tu po polsku, jesli to jest latwiej. Czytam po polsku lepiej, niz pisze, ale Polacy powiedziaja, ze moja polszczyzna nie jest najgorsza, wiec mam nadzieje, ze Pan to rozumie).

Nie mam czasu i miejsca na Web-stronie dla szczegolowego omowienia nazwisk. Nie chcialem wykluczyc derywacji nazwiska Rutkowski z wyrazu rutka. Chcialem tylko powiedziec, ze w wiekszosci przypadkow to nazwiska prawdopodobnie pochodzi od nazw miejscowosci jak n. p. Rutki, Rutkowo. Czasami Rutkowski zapewne moze pochodzic od rutka, ale ja wierze, ze czesciej to nazwisko pochodzi od nazw miejscowosci. A skad pochodza te nazwy miejscowosci? Prawdopodobnie od rutka! Zapewne te wsi tak sie nazywaly, gdyz tam byly rutki. Wiec mozemy powiedzic, ze Rutkowski moze pochodzic od rutka, posrednio lub bezposrednio. Naczesciej nazwiska odnosi sie do nazw miejscowosci, i nazwy miejscowosci pochodza od wyrazu rutka. (Takze nie moge wykluczyc derywacji z zenskiego imiona Rut, a nawet z nazwiska Rudkowski). Ale czasami jest mozliwe, ze Rutkowski pochodzi bezposrednio od rutka. Tylko to pewne, ze nazwisko to odnosi sie do jakiegos zwiazku z ruta – do miejsca, gdzie ruta rosnala, lub gdzie dziewczyny rute zbierali, lub do dziewczyn, zbierajacych rute.

W swej ksiazce Nazwiskach Polakow prof. Kazimierz Rymut daje zbior nazwisk od postawy Kin-, w tych Kinic, a kin- pochodzi od staropolskiego wyrazu kina~c~, "rosna~c~, kipiec~." Inni polscy onomasci daja takze mozliwa derywacje od imiona Kin- jako skroconej formy imiona Konrad. Wiec Kinic moze znaczyc "syn Konrada," ale takze moze znaczyc "syn rosnacego, kipiacego, kiwnacego." W r. 1990 Polacy nazwiska Kinic liczyli 34, w wojewodztwach: bielskim 4, gdanskim 3, kaliskim 2, katowickim 3, koszalinskim 4, lodzkim 2, poznanskim 12, sieradzkim 1, szczecinskim 2, wloclawskim 1.

Man nadzieje, ze te notatki pomagaja Panu, i zycze Panu najlepszego szczescia w badaniach.

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To: Krystyna Kasperowicz, krystyna_kasperowicz@bigpond.com, who wrote:

… As stated above I would appreciate if you could provide me with any information on this surname (Kasperowicz). The name originates I believe from the area Wilno which was once part of Poland.

This is a pretty easy one. The suffix -owicz means "son of" (the same suffix is also used in Russian and other Slavic languages, only the spelling changes -- most often by our phonetic values it is rendered -ovich), and Kasper is the first name we write as "Casper." This is not that common a name in English-speaking countries, but it is reasonably common in Europe, because by tradition Casper was the name of one of the Three Magi or Wise Men who visited the baby Jesus shortly after his birth (tradition says the other two were named Melchior and Baltazar). So the surname just means "son of Casper."

This surname is moderately common in Poland -- as of 1990 there were 1,759 Polish citizens by this name, living all over the country, but especially common in northeastern Poland, near the border with Lithuania. My data only covers Poland in its current boundaries, so I don't have exact figures on people by this name in Lithuania -- but many ethnic Poles did live, and still live, in Lithuania, especially near the area of Wilno (now Vilnius). This surname is also reasonably common in Lithuania, but in the forms Kasparavicius and Kasperavicius, which are just Lithuanian renderings of Kasperowicz. If you have relatives still in Lithuania, chances are that's how the spell the name -- "Kasperowicz" is a little too obviously Polish and therefore foreign, Lithuanians prefer to spell the name their way.

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To: TexasTrz@aol.com, who wrote:

… Curious to know if you've got any information on the surname Trzaskoma.

This is a rather unusual name in that it appears to come from the root trzaska, "wood chip," or the related verb trzaskac~, "to whack, whip, smack," but you don't often see -oma added as a suffix to Polish roots. Still, the name appears in old Polish legal documents as far back as 1436, and Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut lists it under names coming from the roots mentioned above, so apparently there's good reason to think that's what it derives from. As of 1990 there were 504 Polish citizens named Trzaskoma, with the majority living in the province of Warsaw (361) and smaller numbers (22 or fewer) in a number of other provinces.

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To: fj0500@cnsvax.albany.edu, who wrote:

… My surname is Jeziorkowski. I was wondering if you could tell me more about it.

The basic root of this name is jezioro, "lake." It breaks down as Jezior- + -k- + -owski, with -k- representing a diminutive suffix ("little lake") and -owski an adjectival suffix meaning "of, from, pertaining to the place of," so that the name as a whole parses as meaning "one from the place of the little lakes." In most cases, however, -owski names refer to a connection between a person or family and a specific place or places with similar names. In this case, we'd expect Jeziorkowski to mean, practically speaking, "one from Jeziorko or Jeziorki," with those place names meaning essentially "little lakes." There are at least a dozen villages named Jeziorki and at least seven more named Jeziorko, and the surname could refer to any or all of them, so I'm afraid the name by itself doesn't do much to clarify exactly where the family came from. If, however, you have a little luck with your research and find your family came from a specific area of Poland, and then you discover a Jeziorko or Jeziorki somewhere nearby, chances are reasonably good that's the place the name originally referred to. The surname is pronounced roughly "yeah-zhore-KOFF-skee" in Polish -- the "zhore" sounds like English "shore," but with the initial sound much like "s" in "pleasure."

As of 1990 there were 264 Polish citizens by this name, scattered all over Poland but with larger numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (54), Poznan (59), and Zamosc (32). I'm afraid I don't have access to further details such as first names and addresses.

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To: turtle@usaor.net, who wrote:

… Your book gives the meaning "to prepare (food)" for the surname Warzynski and I would like to know if you can give me any more information on the source of the name. Is it prevalent in Poland today? My ancestor came from Zerniki/Oborniki.

Well, the point is that names beginning with War- or Warz- usually trace back to the root war, "something hot," or warzyc~, "to cook, prepare food." However, along the way suffixes were added to produce various names of people and places, so that we'd expect Warzyn~ski to come from such names (here I'm using n~ to stand for the Polish accented n; the name is pronounced something like "wah-ZHIN-skee," where "ZHIN" rhymes with English "shin" but the first sound is like the "s" in "pleasure"). In general the name Warzyn~ski probably meant "person from Warzyn, Warzyny," and those place names in turn derived from that root -- perhaps these were places known for their cooking, or were founded or owned by a fellow with a name from that root. Some places that might produce this surname are the villages of Warzyn in Kielce province and Warzyn~-Kmiecy and Warzyn~-Sko~ry in Plock province, and Warzno in Gdansk province. People from those places could very well end up being called Warzyn~ski.

I don't have data on exactly how those places ended up with these names, what the connection with the root warz- was. The Polish Language Institute is putting out a 10-volume series on the origins of place names, but so far they've only gotten up to the D's, so it'll be a while before they get to the volume that discusses places beginning with Warz-.

This is a moderately common surname in Poland, as of 1990 there were 1,007 Poles named Warzyn~ski. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (87), Bydgoszcz (50), Katowice (108), Kielce (118), Piotrkow (83), Pila (89), and Radom (74), and smaller numbers in many other provinces. There were only 2 in Poznan province, which is where Oborniki and Zerniki are located (there are lots of Zerniki's, but that's the only area where I find an Oborniki and a Zerniki near each other). So if your ancestors came from that area, there don't seem to be too many left there now.

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From: JDobrz1062@aol.com, who wrote:

… In your spare time could you tell me about the Dobrzynski surname?

This is one of those surnames on which there's really not a lot to tell. It generally refers to origin in a town or village called Dobrzyn, meaning something like "one from Dobrzyn," and there are at least 9 places by that name in Poland. The surname is pretty common, as of 1990 there were 8,215 Poles named Dobrzyn~ski (I use n~ to stand for the Polish n with an accent over it). So unfortunately the name is too common, and there are too many places it could derive from, to give much in the way of details; a Dobrzyn~ski could come from almost anywhere in Poland, and there are undoubtedly many separate Dobrzyn~ski families that all acquired the name independently. Your best bet is to see if you can turn up info on the area in Poland your ancestors came from, then look to see if there's a Dobrzyn anywhere near by -- if so, chances are that's the place the name originally referred to.

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To: Lawrence Kiewra, lkiewra@walshmessenger.com, who wrote:

… Hi, I found your web page & was wondering if you had any quick thoughts on our surname of Kiewra

I'm sorry I couldn't answer your note sooner. I've been horribly busy lately, and haven't had much time for answering name inquiries. But I did look through my sources some time ago for information, and found that none of them mentioned this name. I was waiting for another book to come in, which, I hoped, might shed some light. But unfortunately, it didn't. So I simply have to admit I don't have a clue what this name comes from. My gut feeling is that it might be Ukrainian, but even my Ukrainian sources don't mention it.

The one thing I can tell you is that the name, while not common, is not unknown in Poland. As of 1990 there were 196 Polish citizens named Kiewra, and another 94 named Kiewro. Neither name showed any particular concentration in one place, although both seem more common in western Poland, in the areas formerly ruled by Germany but returned to Poland after World War II. This is not inconsistent with Ukrainian origin, because after World War II huge numbers of ethnic Ukrainians were forced to relocate from southeastern Poland (which used to include much of western Ukraine) to those "recovered lands" (as the Poles call them) in western Poland. If we had data from before World War II (but unfortunately we don't), I would make a pretty sizable bet the name would show up almost exclusively in eastern Poland and western Ukraine.

I'm sorry I couldn't help more -- you might visit www.infoukes.com, investigate their resources, and see if anyone there can at least confirm or refute my suspicion that the name is Ukrainian. If it is, who knows, maybe someone there can tell you something useful... You might also try writing the Anthroponymic Workshop of the Polish Language Institute -- there's more info in the introduction to this Webpage.

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To: Tami Sutherland, suther18@pilot.msu.edu, who wrote:

… I was wondering if you could tell me the origins and/or meanings of the surnames Adamowicz and Perkowski?

Adamowicz is a simple one, it means "son of Adam" -- that suffix -owicz shows up in most Slavic languages, although in the others it's usually spelled -ovich or something similar; -owicz is a distinctively Polish spelling. As of 1990 there were 7,583 Poles named Adamowicz, so it's a pretty common name, found all over the country.

Perkowski is probably like most other names ending in -owski, usually they refer to a connection between a person or family and a particular place with a similar name; we'd expect Perkowski to have started as meaning "one from Perki or Perkowo or Perkowice." Unfortunately, there are several villages in Poland that could yield this surname, including a Perki in Plock province, several settlements in Lomza province with two names of which the first is Perki (e. g., Perki-Lachy), Perkowice in Biala Podlaska province, and Perkowo in Leszno province. People coming from any of these places could easily end up with the surname Perkowski, and without detailed information on where a given Perkowski family came from in Poland, it's impossible to match them up with any one of those places.

As of 1990 there were 5,264 Poles named Perkowski, so this, too, is a fairly common name. The name was most common in the provinces of Bialystok (1,235), Lomza (951), and Suwalki (272), so it is somewhat concentrated in the northeastern part of Poland, near the borders with Lithuania and Belarus. However, it is not exclusive to those areas, you do run into the name in decent numbers almost anywhere in Poland.