BALIN~SKI - PASTUSZYN~SKI

To: Debra Pastuszynska <scarlet1@sowega.net>

> Could you please tell me anything you know about the names Pastuszynski and Balinski?

In Polish Pastuszy~nski is spelled with an accent over the N and pronounced roughly "poss-too-SHIN-skee." Balin~ski also has an accented N and is pronounced roughly "bah-LEEN-skee."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 141 Polish citizens named Pastuszyn~ski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 47, Gdansk 13, Katowice 11, and Kielce 26. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data tells us the name is scattered all over the country, with about a third of them living near Warsaw. That's probably not much help, but then relatively few surnames are concentrated in any one area to the point that it helps you trace where a given family would have come from. You usually have to trace the family back in the records, generation by generation, to establish that.

While Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut doesn't mention this exact name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], he does mention others beginning Pastusz-, and it's quite clear this name comes from the same root: pastuch, "herdsman, one who watches the herd." The guttural -ch at the end of that noun changes to the "sh" sound that Poles spell -sz- when suffixes are added. So Pastuszynski means literally "of the herdsman's _," where the blank is filled in with something so obvious it didn't have to be spelled out -- usually either "kin" or "place."

So it is quite possible this surname refers to the name of a place along the lines of Pastuszyn or Pastuszno, which would have started out meaning "place of the herdsman." I can't find any places by such names in my sources, but then sometimes these surnames referred to little settlements or subdivisions of a village. So a Pastuszyn or Pastuszno could have been small, not likely to show up on any maps, and yet could have generated a surname. Again, only detailed research into the specific family is likely to give a really firm, reliable answer that question.

But to be honest, I think in this case it is quite likely the name just means "kin of the herdsman." These X-yn~ski surnames often refer to place names, but not always. And "kin of the herdsman" is a pretty plausible interpretation of the name.

So if I were you, I'd figure that's probably what it means. Still, as you research, keep an eye open for a place with a name beginning Pastusz-. If you find there was such a place somewhere near where your ancestors came from, it is entirely possible the surname referred to it. What we can say for sure is that the name means either "kin of the herdsman" or "one from the place of the herdsman."

As of 1990 there were 3,374 Polish citizens named Balin~ski, living all over the country, with no really significant concentration in any one part. The largest numbers tend to show up in provinces near the center of the country, especially Warsaw (365), Kielce (232), Lodz (232), Torun (188), and Wloclawek (145), with another chunk in southwestern Poland (Katowice 254, Wroclaw 148). But again, there's not really a clear pattern -- a Balinski family could come from practically anywhere.

Names in the form X-in~ski are like those in the form X-yn~ski -- they usually refer to places. Balin~ski usually means "one from Balin or Balino." The problem is, there are several places in Poland with those names, and the surname gives no clue which one is being referred to in a given case.

If you'd like to see maps showing at least some of these places, go to this Website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.htm 

Enter "Balin" as the place you're looking for, select "Poland" as the country to be searched, and select "All towns starting with this precise spelling." Click on "Start the search," and after a moment you'll see a list of various places in Poland with names starting Balin-. For each one, click on the blue numbers (latitude and longitude) and you'll get a map showing that location. You can print the map, save it, zoom in and out, etc. This may help you may a connection if your research helps you pin down a particular part of Poland that your Balinskis came from, and thus may help you establish which Balino or Balino they took their name from.

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CHOJNACKI - HOJNACKI

To: Kelly Manwaring <manwaring@winnet.com.au>

> Hello, I am soon to be wed! My fiance's surname is Chojnacki. His grandfather is originally from Poland. I was wondering if you could please give me some information on my surname-to-be.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

In Polish Chojnacki is pronounced roughly "hoy-NOT-skee," although the initial sound is a bit more guttural than English H; it's like the "ch" in German "Bach."

Chojnacki is a fairly common name, borne by 24,744 Polish citizens as of 1990; they lived all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area. A Chojnacki family could come from practically anywhere in Poland.

The surname refers generally to the name of place where a family by this name lived or worked at some point centuries ago. A particularly good candidate is Chojnata, east-southeast of Skierniewice in central Poland; but there may be other places with names that qualify as well. "Chojnata" probably comes from the basic root choina, "fir, spruce tree," so that Chojnacki can be interpreted as "one from the place of the spruces," and thus it might not always refer to a specific place you can find on a map -- it might refer to any family who lived in an area with a lot of spruces. But as a rule I'd expect it to refer to a family's origin in Chojnata or some other place with a similar name, which probably referred to firs or spruces in the area.

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CERAN- CYRAN - CYRON

To: Steve Cyran <DiverSEC@aol.com>

> I am a physician in Hershey, PA and am researching my surname. Could you/would you be able to educate me regarding the surname Cyran?

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "TSI-ron" where the first syllable has a short i sound like that in English "ship."It comes from the noun cyran, meaning "teal" (a kind of duck), according to Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut. Presumably it began as a nickname for one whom people associated with teals in some way, perhaps because he lived in an area where they were frequent, or he liked to hunt for them, or wore clothes colored like a teal -- something along those lines.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 4,541 Polish citizens named Cyran. They lived all over Poland; there was no one area with which the name was particularly associated. There were also a number of Poles using variants of this name, including Ceran (609) and Cyron (747).

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DUSZA

To: Mary Anne Sine <msine@avaya.com>

> I have looked quite a bit for info on my maternal grandparents name Dusza

> Any help would be appreciated.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions Dusza (pronounced roughly “DOO-shah”) in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1456 and comes from the basic root seen in the verb dusic~, "to suffocate," and the noun dusza, "soul, spirit." In Polish, as in many other languages, the word meaning "soul, spirit" comes from the native root meaning "breath," but in Polish that root's meaning is modified in the verb meaning "to suffocate, choke off breath."

The simplest way to translate dusza is "soul," perhaps meant as an endearment, as if to say "You're a dear soul." I know in Russian you hear a diminutive of this same word, dushenka, used as a term of endearment. I suspect that's how it was meant as a surname in Polish -- sort of like saying "Now there's someone with a soul!"

As of 1990 there were 5,002 Poles by this name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area; it was more common in the southern part of the country than in the north, especially in the provinces of Katowice (1,278), Nowy Sacz (335), Opole (202), Radom (299), and Wroclaw (216). Still, you can't really say there's any one part fo the couontry a Dusza family would have come from; they could come from pretty much anywhere.

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FRA~CZAK - FRONCZAK

To: Samuel Jaworski <sevandhook@juno.com>

> I have been researching the Fronczak family and have heard it was spelled Fra~czak. I'm not very sure about this and needed some help on making this strange curly letter.

Online we use A~ to stand for the Polish nasal vowel that is properly written as an A with a tail under it. But on the Internet it's difficult to send Polish letters and have them transmit properly -- they usually get garbled and come out unrecognizable, unless you have your computer configured specifically for Polish.

If I send you the correct Polish spelling of the name you're asking about, Frączak, chances are it will not show up right on your screen (the third letter should be an a with a tail under it). So online we use the tilde ~ as a way of signaling readers that the preceding letter is not a plain A or a plain L, but rather the Polish A with a tail or L with a slash, etc. It's kind of awkward, but it's reliable, and it helps us tell whether we're talking about a plain A or a nasal A -- and recognizing that difference is often crucial when discussing names. We do the same thing with the Polish nasal E, the L with a slash, the C and N and S and Z with accents, and the dotted Z. Using the tilde indicates the difference between those letters and the plain versions in a way we can be sure will transmit correctly, so that all concerned know for sure which letter we're talking about.

In other words, Fra~czak in Polish is actually spelled Fraczak, but that first A has a tail under it. That letter is normally pronounced like "on" in French bon, or a little like the "on" in English "bone," but without quite finishing the n sound. But for all practical purposes, Poles pronounce Fra~czak and Fronczak exactly the same -- "FRON-chock."

That's what someone meant when they said it was spelled Fra~czak. That third letter isn't really A~ but rather the A with a tail. We just use A~ online because it transmits more reliably and it tips us off that that A isn't plain A but the Polish nasal A.

In Polish, Fra~czak and Fronczak are two different ways of spelling the same name; some spell it with the nasal -a~-, some with -on-. It doesn't really make a lot of difference which way you spell it. Either way, it means "son of Frank," coming from a short form of the Polish first name Franciszek, "Francis."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,871 Polish citizens named Fra~czak. They lived all over the country, with the largest concentration, 556, in the province of Warsaw. There were 2,022 Poles who spelled the name Fronczak, and again, the largest number, 668, lived in the province of Warsaw. But people by both spellings lived all over Poland, so there's no way to say where a given Fra~czak or Fronczak family would have come from, just by looking at this data.

What all this means for you in practical terms is this. 1) The surname is a moderately common one, simply indicating that an ancestor was named Franciszek or some short form or nickname of that first name. 2) The surname may be spelled either Fra~czak or Fronczak. In old records spelling was often inconsistent, as the priest or clerk would simply write it down the way he heard it. You might see the same person called Fra~czak in one record, Fronczak in another. So as you research, you need to keep your eyes open for either spelling.

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FRANCZAK - FRAN~CZAK

To: J Frencho <JKFRENCHO@aol.com>

> I am doing a project for school. We have to look up the origin of our last name.

> My last name is Frencho, but it was changed in 1893 when my ancestor Jan Franczak came over on the boat. Could you look up the meaning of Franczak?

I'm glad you were able to establish the original form of the name -- I couldn't have guessed that Frencho came from Franczak.

Franczak in Polish is pronounced roughly "FRON-chock"; the first syllable rhymes more or less with the English words "gone" and "on."

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says the name Franczak appears in records as early as 1696 (and of course may go back a lot further; that's just the earliest appearance they've found so far in surviving documents).

The Francz- part comes from the first name Franciszek ("fron-CHEE-shek"), the Polish version of "Francis" (from Latin Franciscus). Poles often formed nicknames and affectionate short forms of names by taking the first few sounds, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes. So much as we get Frank and Frankie from Francis, Poles took the Franc- part, dropped the rest, and added -ak; in the process Franc- was modified to Francz-. That suffix -ak is a diminutive, so that Franczak means literally "little Franc." But usually in surnames you can translate the -ak part as "son of" or "kin of." So Franczak should normally be interpreted as meaning "son of Franc," or, as we'd say it, "son of Frank." The surname simply indicates that an ancestor was the son of a guy called Franc or some other very similar nickname from the first name we know as "Francis."

It's also possible an ancestor was known as Franek or Franko, two other nicknames from that same first name, and the -ek or -ko turned into -cz- when the -ak was added. I felt I should mention this because it's another way this surname could have developed. But in practical terms it makes little difference -- it still boils down to "son of Frank."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 5,131 Polish citizens named Franczak. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 323, Krakow 466, Lublin 342, Nowy Sacz 261. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data indicates that the name is found all over Poland but tends to be a bit more common in the southcentral to southeastern part of the country.

There is one other possibility I should mention. In Polish there are two letters N, one plain and one with an accent over it; online I use N~ to stand for that letter because the Polish characters don't show up on browsers unless you configure them for eastern European languages, which is more trouble than it's worth. So when I type Fran~czak, just remember that the N~ should actually be an accented N. That accent changes the pronunciation, so that Fran~czak sounds more like "FRINE-chock," with the first syllable rhyming with "pine."

That name means the same thing, "son of Frank"; it's just some people in some areas had a tendency to modify the sound of the N, and some didn't. You run into a lot of this sort of thing with Polish names -- little subtleties of pronunciation that don't really affect the meaning of the name, but do change the way it sounds. We don't have anything quite like this in English, so it's hard to explain. The simplest way to say it is that Franczak and Fran~czak are two different names that mean the same thing.

When a Fran~czak came to an English-speaking country such as the United States, no one knew what to make of that accent over the N, so it was usually just dropped. Thus both Franczak and Fran~czak usually ended up becoming plain Franczak in this country. And of course there could be further modification of the name later on, as there was in your case. Immigrants realized that people were having trouble with their names, so they'd modify them to make them a little easier for English-speakers to deal with. Frencho still retains some of the sound of the original name, but is easier for Americans to spell and pronounce. Or it's possible some official was filling out papers for your ancestor somewhere along the way, misheard the name, spelled it wrong, and the mistake stuck. Only detailed research into the family history might establish exactly what happened and when. But it all comes down to the same basic thing: the original name sounded too "foreign" and was modified to something a little easier to say and spell.

As of 1990 there were 1,290 Polish citizens named Fran~czak, living all over the country, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Przemysl 113, Rzeszow 91, and Tarnobrzeg 285. Those provinces are in the southeastern part of the country. So Franczak tends to show up more toward southcentral Poland, whereas Fran~czak is more common a little farther east.

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JAGELSKI - JAGIELSKI

To: Chris Pickard <pickacard@hotmail.com>

> My grandfather's surname was Jagelski. Can you give me any information about my family's past, or tell me of any resources that might prove fruitful?

Jagelski is a spelling variation of the surname usually spelled Jagielski, pronounced roughly "yog-YELL-skee." The rules of Polish orthography say that the letter E may not follow the letter G unless an I is interposed (because in standard Polish the hard G sound cannot be followed by E with palatalization, which is indicated with the insertion of the I, -g + -e = -gie-). So Jagelski is not "correct," but Jagielski is... In practice, however, not everybody followed these rules all the time, especially in old records and in the context of immigration. The standard form, however, is Jagielski, of which Jagelski a variant.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 6,696 Polish citizens by this name. This name is found all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area. (By contrast, there were 9 Polish citizens who spelled it Jagelski, living in the provinces of Gdansk, 7, and Torun, 2).

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions the surname Jagielski in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], and he says it comes from an adjective formed from the noun jagl~a, "millet" (I use L~ online to stand for the Polish L with a slash through it, pronounced like our W in English). So Jagielski can mean nothing more than "the millet guy," perhaps referring to one who grew or sold or liked millet; or it might refer to a family's origin in a place such as Jagiele in Suwalki province, and the place name, in turn, is what came from the noun for "millet."

Some have asked me whether this name might be connected with Jagiel~l~o , the Lithuanian prince who married Polish Queen Jadwiga in 1385 and thereby began the joining of Poland and Lithuania as the Commonwealth of Two Nations. As I say, Rymut finds the connection to be mainly with the word for "millet."

Another name expert, however, points out that Jagielski can also refer to the name of a place such as Jagiel~l~a in Przemysl province, or Jagiel~l~a in Siedlce province. I don't know for sure, but those places might derive their name from some tenuous connection with the name of the Lithuanian-Polish king; they may have meant "place of Jagiel~l~o or his kin." It's unlikely the surname refers to any direct connection with Jagiel~l~o himself, although of course you never know. But more often such names referred to a servant or property of the great man himself, rather than to any blood link with him.

Jagiel~l~o, by the way, is a Polonized form of his original Lithuanian name, Jogailo. It is thought to come from the Lithuanian roots jo-, "to ride (on horseback)" and gail-, "mighty," so that his name probably meant something like "mighty rider." When he married Queen Jadwiga and accepted Christianity he took a Christian first name and was known thenceforth as Ladislaus Jogailo; but he became better known by the Polish forms of those names, Wladyslaw Jagiel~l~o.

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KOS~NIK

To: Ashley McCann <mccann6364@parishonline.tv>

> Hello, my name is Ashley and I am trying to find out what my Great Great Grandfather's name means, I believe it is spelled Kosnik. He came to Michigan, USA in 1883 at the age of three. I have not been able to locate his name on any passenger ships or anything. Do you think the spelling may be wrong?

Well, that's always a possibility you have to take into account. But I'm inclined to think the spelling hasn't been modified, because there is a Polish surname Kosnik, and I can find no other name that really matches well. But in Polish Kosnik is usually spelled with an accent over the S. Online I use the tilde ~ to indicate the diacritical marks in Polish letters, because you can't see the original letters without reconfiguring your browser for the Central European character set or for Unicode, which is usually more trouble than it's worth. So when I type Kos~nik, remember that the S~ is actually an S with an accent over it.

In Polish that name is pronounced roughly "KOSH-neek." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,048 Polish citizens by that name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 133, Gdansk 86, Katowice 60, Lomza 88, Olsztyn 72, and Ostroleka 319. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

This data tells us the name is found all over Poland, but tends to be more concentrated in northeastern Poland, near the cities of Warsaw, Lomza, and Ostroleka. You can't conclude that's definitely where your ancestors came from, but it suggests that general area might be worth special attention.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it generally comes from the noun kos~nik, which means "mower, haymaker." It might also be connected with the adjective kos~ny, "hay-growing," but I think most likely it began as a reference to an ancestor's occupation. He helped mow the fields and make hay, and thus was nicknamed Kos~nik. At some point that name stuck and became established as a surname.

As I say, chances are decent Kosnik is the right spelling (the accent, of course, was usually dropped in non-Polish-speaking countries). But I should add that names of Eastern European immigrants were frequently misspelled at various points along the way, and this could affect your search. Thus if a Pole who couldn't write (and most immigrants couldn't) showed up at a German port such as Hamburg or Bremen and gave his papers to a German official, the German might spell the name the way it sounded to him, like Koshnick. Or an English-speaker might spell it Koshnik or Koschnik or even Coshnick or Coshnik. There wouldn't necessarily be any intention of changing it; but when people encounter a name that sounds "foreign" to them, the name often ends up being modified.

It's conceivable, for instance, that your ancestor was Kos~nik, but the name was misspelled at some point, and since he couldn't read or write he had no way of knowing. Once he got to the U. S., however, he might have been around other Poles who could help him spell it right again. So it might have started out correct on his original papers issued near his ancestral village; then got misspelled somewhere along the way; then was corrected once he settled down in America. There are jillions of ways this scenario might play out, any of which could cause a wrong spelling to show up just where you're looking for it. That's why with surnames you have to wrack your brain to try to think of every possible spelling variation.

One other thought comes to mind. If your family settled in Michigan, you might find that the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan can offer some help. They've developed lots of resources to help researchers find info on families that settled in that state. If you'd like more info you can visit their Website at http://www.pgsm.org. I don't want to pressure you to join them -- I'm just saying quite a few folks have found their assistance helpful.

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MROCZKA - WOJNAROWSKI

To: Steven Ukasick <ask4more@core.com>

> Mroczka. From Southeastern Poland near Toki. My dictionary had an obscure reference to bat, or does it come from the root word for darkness?

The modern meaning of words from which names are derived can be misleading. What matters is what the word meant centuries ago, when names were developing. Polish name experts say Mroczka (pronounced roughly "M'ROTCH-kah") comes from the root seen in the noun mrok, "darkness," and the verb mrokotac~, "to squint," and especially the noun mroczek, "one who squints, especially due to scotoma." So Mroczka probably began in most cases as a nickname meaning "squinter."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 1,183 Poles by this name. They lived all over Poland, but the largest numbers lived in the southeastern provinces of Krosno, 184, Przemysl, 119, and Rzeszow, 142 (Jaslo was in Krosno province in 1990). So the name is most common in southeastern Poland, the part of the country that, with western Ukraine, was seized by Austria during the partitions and ruled by Austria as "Galicia." Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info.

> Second name, Wojnarowicz Is the root word war? Does it mean then Son of War or something similar? Same area of Poland but this time Jaslo.

Yes, according to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles], this name does derive from the word meaning "war," and -owicz does mean "son of." So "son of the warrior" is probably the closest English translation. As of 1990 there were 680 Polish citizens by this name, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Tarnow, 86, and Zamosc, 89. Wojnarowicz is pronounced roughly "voy-nahr-OH-veech."

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PARADA

To: Debbie Feltz <mdscoor@eznet.net>

> I would appreciate it if you could advise me of the meaning of my maiden name Parada. My daughter is doing a project for her 4th grade class, and we have been having difficulty with this.

In Polish Parada is pronounced roughly "pah-RAH-dah." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 974 Polish citizens by that name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 50, Chelm 128, Katowice 70, Kielce 141, Lublin 63. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. This data tells us the name is found all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the noun parada, "show, exhibition, ceremony, pomp" -- in other words from the same origin as our word "parade." It is thought to have come from Old French parade, "exhibition," from parer, "to embellish," from Latin parare, to "prepare."

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SOBOLEWSKI

To: Andrea Kolden <akolden@nh.com>

> Should you be so kind, I would love to get an interpretation of my maiden name….Sobolewski.

In Polish Sobolewski is pronounced roughly "so-bo-LEFF-skee," or, in some areas, more like "so-bo-LESS-kee" -- which explains why it is sometimes spelled Soboleski. But the standard form is Sobolewski, of which Sobolewska is the feminine form.

It's a moderately common name by Polish standards. As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 15,631 Poles by that name. They lived all over the country, with no significant concentration in any one area. A Sobolewski family could come from practically any part of Poland.

Names in the form X-ewski usually mean "one from _" where the blank is filled in with the name of a place beginning with the X part. So we'd expect Sobolewski to mean "one from Sobole or Sobolow or Sobolewo" or some similar place name, meaning "the place of the sables." There are a number of villages in Poland with those names, and the surname gives no clue which one a given family would have come from. Only genealogical research into the history of a specific family might shed light on that question. Without that kind of detailed info, all I can tell you is that the name means "one from Sobole or Sobolow or Sobolewo" or some other place with a name beginning Sobol-, which, in turn, comes from the word meaning "sable."

Incidentally, sometimes X-ewski can also mean "of the kin of X," so that it is theoretically possible this name might mean "kin of the Sable," referring to an ancestor who was nicked Sobol, the Sable, for some reason. We can't rule that out with further research. But I doubt that's applicable. Most Sobolewskis would have gotten that name because of a connection with a place Sobolewo, Sobolow, etc.

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WOJCIECHOWSKI

To: Niki Ashe <cjse04066@blueyonder.co.uk>

> I am looking at the surname Wojciechowska, I have no info on this name and be most grateful if you could help.

Names in the form X-ska are almost always feminine versions of the same name ending in -ski. So a female would be called Wojciechowska, pronounced roughly "voj-cheh-HOFF-skee," and a male would be Wojciechowski ("voj-cheh-HOFF-skee"). The latter is regarded as the standard form of the name.

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 63,519 Polish citizens by that name. They lived all over Poland, so the surname gives us no clue as to where a specific family by that name might have come from. They could have come from anywhere in Poland.

This surname started out meaning either "kin of Wojciech" or "one from Wojciech's place." Most of the time, I think the latter would apply -- the name would mean "one from Wojciechy or Wojciechow or Wojciechowo," and there are a great many villages by those names, all of which mean basically "the place of Wojciech." The Slavic name Wojciech is closely identified with the Germanic name Albert/Albrecht/Adalbert, because the original St. Wojciech was confirmed by the bishop of Magdeburg, Adalbert, and honored him by taking his name as his own confirmation name. Since then Wojciech and Albert have been regarded as equivalents (though linguistically they have no link at all). Thus Wojciechowski could be interpreted as meaning "one from Albertville."

But that's a little fanciful. In most cases it just means "one from _" where you fill in the blank with any of a number of place names meaning "[place] of Wojciech." The only way to determine which one your particular family was connected with is through genealogical research, which might provide details enabling you to focus on a specifc area in Poland and thus find the most likely Wojciechowo or Wojciechowice or whatever -- a much more promising prospect than having to search through all the places in Poland with names that fit. Unless, of course, the name simply means you had an ancestor named Wojciech. Usually, however, names in the form X-owski do refer to places with names beginning with the X part.

==========

WOJNAROWSKI

To: Robert Wojnarowski <wojnaro@attglobal.net>

> I was very impressed reading the descriptions of the histories of various Polish surnames on the internet through the PGSA website. I did not see my surname and am quite interested in what you can find out. My surname is Wojnarowski. My grandparents arrived from Pilsno, Poland at the turn of the 20th century (1900-1910ish). I know no other info beyond that. I would appreciate anything you could find on the name.

This name is pronounced roughly "voy-nah-ROFF-skee." Names ending in -owski usually refer to the name of a place where the family lived at some point centuries ago. We would expect Wojnarowski to refer to a place named Wojnary or Wojnarow or Wojnarowo or Wojnarowice -- something beginning Wojnar-. There are at least two villages the name might refer to, Wojnary near Nowy Sacz in southcentral Poland, or Wojnarowice near Wroclaw in southwestern Poland. Without detailed info on a given family's background there is no way to know which place the surname refers to in their given case.

==========

HARABURDA

To: <roman@caird.fsbusiness.co.uk>

> I am very surprised to find that the surname 'HARABURDA' is not listed
> in your database. I am looking for the origins and meaning of the word -
> someone suggested that 'haraburda' is a derivative of an old ukrainian
> word 'halaburda'. Can u help??

No need to be surprised; a Polish government agency database showed over
600,000 surnames borne by Polish citizens as of 1990 -- and that does not
include another 200,000 surnames with a frequency of 0 (meaning the name
existed in the database but the entry was incomplete or corrupted; many of
these were probably just misspelled). Some 40,000 surnames were borne by
over 100 Polish citizens. That means roughly half a million surnames were
borne by fewer than 100 Poles as of 1990. That's an awful lot of names. The
fact that a specific name doesn't appear on the Website simply means no one
has asked about it before -- not surprising, in view of the numbers.

As of 1990, according to the data I referred to above (from the Slownik
nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland, now available online at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 722 Polish citizens named HARABURDA (pronounced roughly "hah-rah-BOOR-dah"). The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Bialystok 149, and Suwalki 356. Unfortunately I don't have access to further details such as first names or addresses, so I can't tell you how to find that info. But this data indicates this surname is found all over Poland but most often in
the northeastern part of the country.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it is indeed a variant
of hal~aburda, a term meaning "brawler, one who causes disorder, one who
engages in debauchery." (I'm using L~ to stand for the Polish L with a slash
through it, pronounced like our W). This noun means essentially the same
thing in Ukrainian, although in Ukrainian the primary meaning is "brawling,
disorder, trouble, debauch," whereas in Polish it refers to one who engages
in such behavior. All in all, it seems likely the name began as a nickname
for an ancestor who had a tendency toward rowdy behavior; the name stuck,
and eventually became established as a surname inherited by his children.

It is not odd to see a name vary between forms with L (Halaburda) and R
(Haraburda). These sounds are considered to be related phonetically, and we
often see interesting variations involving them (for instance the Polish name Rolbiecki also appears in the form Lorbiecki). Probably in some areas there was a dialect tendency to turn that L sound into an R, so the word was pronounced _haraburda_ instead of _halaburda_, and that fact is reflected in the surname form.

It is interesting to note that as of 1990 there were 226 Polish citizens who
went by the name HALABURDA with plain L (pronounced roughly
"hah-lah-BOOR-dah") and another 339 who spelled it with the Polish L with a
slash through it, which sounds like English W ("hah-wah-BOOR-dah"). So 3
different forms of this noun gave rise to three different surnames, which are related linguistically (but that would not necessarily imply any relation in terms of kinship between families bearing these names).

If you'd like to study the data on the frequency and distribution of these
names, go to this Website, http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html, and
type "*a?aburda" in the box, then click on "Szukaj" (Search). Use of the
wild cards * and ? will help match many different spellings of the name --
Chalaburda, Galaburda, etc. (I would ignore Malaburda, Mal~aburda,
Maraburda, Naraburda, and Staraburda -- they are probably something else
entirely, although I could be wrong). Studying the data this way can be
fascinating, and can also sometimes prove to be very helpful. If I hadn't
looked at it, it would never have occurred to me that this name could also
appear as Alaburda (initial H sound dropped), Chalaburda (H and CH are
pronounced the same in Polish, and thus often appear in variant spellings),
and Galaburda (the H sound was written as G due to Russian influence).

If you need help understanding the data, you can read my article The
"Slownik nazwisk" Is Online!" in the August issue of the free e-zine _Gen
Dobry!_ at this site:

   http://www.polishroots.org/gendobry/GenDobry_vol3_no8.htm

It's fascinating, too, to note that the original form, with L instead of R,
persists in the different forms, Alaburda, Chalburda, Galaburda, etc. -- but
the most common form is the one with R, Haraburda! This is just the sort of
odd and unpredictable fact you run into all the time with surnames!

That's about all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the
best of luck with your research.

==========

MARCINKIEWICZ

MARCINKIEWICZ is pronounced roughly "mar-cheenk-YEAH-veech." The
suffix -ewicz means "son of"; Marcin is the Polish form of "Martin"; and
the -k- is a diminutive, so that Marcink- is short for Marcinek or Marcinko,
meaning literally "little Martin," but possibly also used in the sense of
"son of Martin." So the surname Marcinkiewicz means literally "son of little
Martin," but could also be interpreted as "son of the son of Martin." It
simply indicates that an ancestor was named the Polish equivalent of
"Martin," or "little Martin" as a nickname.

As of 1990 there were 4,385 Polish citizens by that name, living all over
the country, with no concentration in any one area; a Marcinkiewicz family
could come from practically anywhere. To see the data you can search for the
name at this site: http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html. If you need
help understanding how to use it, you can read my article The "Slownik
nazwisk" Is Online!" in the August issue of the free e-zine _Gen Dobry!_ at
this site:

   http://www.polishroots.org/gendobry/GenDobry_vol3_no8.htm

==========

DUDA

To: Karen Farrick <semperfi1633@msn.com>

>  I am looking for the meaning of Duda. This was my grandmother's maiden name and she was born in Poland and came to this country in 1902.

In Polish DUDA is pronounced roughly "DOO-dah." As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland, available online at
http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 38,290 Polish
citizens by this name. They lived all over the country, so that a family by this name could come from anywhere.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as
early as 1392 and comes from the noun duda, which means "bagpipes," also
"a bad musician" (i. e., one who plays the pipes but isn't very good at it).
The name could have begun as a nickname for an ancestor who played the
bagpipes, or for one who was a bad musician. It could also have been used in
a transferred sense, with the meaning "one who goes around making a lot of
pointless noise." There's no way to tell exactly how this name came to be
associated with an individual family, unless detailed research into that family's history turns up some old document that sheds light on the matter.
Absent such info, all we can say is that the name surely began as a nickname
for one who played the pipes (probably not too well), or for one who made a
lot of needless noise. At some point the name came to be applied to that
person's descendants, and eventually "stuck" as a surname.