SITARSKI

To: Adrián Pajakiewicz <pajakiewicz@yahoo.com>

> Now I want to ask you about my mum's surname. It's Sitarski, but it seems to be originally Sitarskij, and it was modified here in Argentina. My grandfather was born at some town at Galicia region when it was part of the Austrian Imperium (I think around 1888). Could you tell me about the origiins of Sitarskij? Is it polish? Is it ukranian?

The spelling with -skij suggests it may be Ukrainian rather than Polish. A few letters may not provide sufficient evidence to justify a conclusion, however. The truth is, it could easily by Polish or Ukrainian, especially since the spelling may have been modified due to the influence of Russian. The Ukrainian form, as spelled in Ukrainian Cyrillic, would be something like Sytarskyi, and the Polish spelling would be Sitarski. Either of these could be rendered in Russian Cyrillic as Sitarskiy (as we'd spell it in English) or Sitarskij (as Poles or Germans would render it). But I think there is just a little more likelihood it is Ukrainian.

The root of the name is sitarz in Polish and sytar in Ukrainian, and means "sieve-maker." Sitarski/Sytarskyj would mean "of the sieve-maker," and probably referred to the kin of one whose occupation was making or selling sieves. In Polish the spelling of the name would, as I said, be Sitarski -- the final -z drops off when the ending is added. In Ukrainian the name is spelled in Cyrillic roughly CNTAPCKNN -- the second letter looks like a backwards N, and the final backwards N has a little curve over it, which is the sound of "y" as in "yacht," but spelled with J by Poles and Germans. In Ukrainian the backwards N is pronounced somewhat like the short I in English "ship," and that's why we often see it rendered as Y in our alphabet, rather than as I.

The confusing thing is that in Russian the backwards N sounds like "ee," not a short i. So Russians and Ukrainians use the same letter for two different sounds. Remember, all official papers in areas ruled by the Russian Empire had to be in Russian during the last few decades of the 19th century. So a Ukrainian name spelled CNTAPCKNN, though pronounced roughly "sit-ar-sky" by Ukrainians, would tend to be spelled the same way by Russians, even though they would pronounce it more like "see-tar-skee." Similarly, Russians would tend to turn Polish Sitarski into CNTAPCKNN (or CNTAPCKIN), pronounced the same way.

The bottom line is, by the time you factor in Russian influence on spelling, it's impossible to say for sure whether Sitarskij represents a phonetic rendering in the Roman alphabet of Polish Sitarski or Ukrainian Sytarskyj. But based on what I've seen in actual documents, I think the presence of that -ij on the end of the name might indicate Ukrainian origin. This is by no means, certain, but that final -J is just a bit less likely to get tacked onto the end of a Polish name, when it is spelled in our alphabet.

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 and can be searched here), there were 2,293 Polish citizens named Sitarski (none spelled it Sitarskij). The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 252, Kielce 449, Lublin 179, and Tarnobrzeg 215. 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 with some concentration in the southeastern regions, which were, of course, formerly part of the Austrian Empire's province of Galicia, along with what is now western Ukraine. I have no data on frequency and distribution for Ukraine, unfortunately.

To summarize, the name means "kin of the sieve-maker," and could be Polish or Ukrainian -- but if I had to make a guess, I'd say Ukrainian is a little more likely. In all honesty, however, the Poles and Ukrainians mixed so much, and there are so many similarities of words and names in their languages, that the difference may be academic. The first name may tell us more -- some names were used far more by Ukranians than Poles, and often the first name makes clear what the surname leaves in doubt.

==========

STRZELCZYK

To: Irene Strzelczyk <miahs3@earthlink.net>

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 and can be searched here), there were 7,984 Polish citizens named Strzelczyk. The name was common all over the country; there's no one area with which it is particularly associated. It's pronounced roughly "S'CHELL-chick."

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. It comes from the basic root seen in the noun strzelec, "shooter, marksman." The term strzelczyk means "young shooter, one being trained to shoot," and as a surname it might also just mean "son of the marksman." Originally terms beginning strzel- referred to marksmen using bows and arrows, but as guns became more common the term expanded to mean "expert shot with a gun" as well. I think "son of the marksman" or "youth being trained as a marksman" would be the most likely interpretations of what the name originally meant, before it came into use as a surname.

==========

STULIGROSZ - TAUBE

To: Kenneth J Stuligross <kenjoestu@yahoo.com>

> My grandparents immigrated to America around 1880-1893. I know all of the people in this country with the name "Stuligross".

> Our name was legally revised from "Stuligrosz" to "Stuligross" in Detroit, Michigan around 1935-1945.

> My Mother's Maiden name was "Taube", which is fairly common, and difficult to trace.

> Both of my parents referred to themselves as "Kashubs", which I understand is the area bordering Germany and Poland, with control of the area frequently changing from one to the other.

> Do you have any suggestions?

In Polish the original form of the name was surely Stuligrosz, which would be pronounced roughly "stoo-LEE-grosh." 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 and can be searched here), there were 62 Polish citizens named Stuligrosz. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz 17, and Poznan 14. 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.

That distribution is not typical of Kashub surnames, which are usually concentrated in the northcentral to northwestern provinces of Bydgoszcz, Gdansk, Pila, and Slupsk. That does not mean, however, that your parents were wrong. People did move around, and it's not at all strange that some folks of Kashub descent might end up in Poznan province, farther south of the ancestral regions of the Kashubs. It only means that from my sources I can't really confirm Kashub origin -- but I see no reason to dispute it, either.

It's pretty clear this name comes from a combination of the root in the verb stulic~, "to squeeze together," and the noun grosz, "penny, small coin." In other words, this almost certainly started as a kind of nickname meaning much the same as "Pinchpenny" in English. Without verification by scholars or researchers who have studied the name's origin in detail, I can't be absolutely certain that's correct. But it's a good educated guess, and I feel pretty confident the name did, indeed, begin as a nickname meaning "one who squeezes his pennies together," i. e., one who was pretty tight with his money. Considering how parsimonious most Poles and Kashubs are, you'd have to be pretty darn tight with money to qualify for this name!

Taube comes from the German word for "dove," and I imagine it would be fairly hard to research because the name offers little in the way of insights or leads (which, frankly, is true of the vast majority of surnames). Since Germany long ruled much of western and northern Poland, we often see German names in those areas; in fact Germans immigrated to Poland in large numbers over the years, so we find German names all over Poland. As of 1990 there were 324 Polish citizens named Taube, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Gdansk, 139, and Pila, 42. So while it does not appear to be associated exclusively with Kashubs, that distribution suggests it probably is most often Kashubian, at least when it appears in Poland.

I have a couple of recommendations for you. With your Detroit roots you may benefit from joining the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan, if you haven't already. It's a good group, which has developed some pretty impressive resources for helping researchers with roots in Michigan. They've been undergoing some problems lately, as key members have had to cut back on their activity due to illness and similar difficulties. But I feel sure the Society will endure and continue to offer its members a lot of assistance. If you want more info, visit their Website at:

http://www.pgsm.org

The Kashubs, in Polish Kaszubi, are a Slavic people closely related to the Poles, but they have their own customs and language (very similar to Polish in many respects). They were pressured by the German rulers of that region to drop their culture and language and associate themselves with Germans, but resisted to a considerable degree. If you'd like to know more about them, these Websites have some information:

http://www.pgsa.org/kashnam2.htm

http://www.pgsa.org/kashname.htm

http://www.pgsa.org/kashub.htm

http://feefhs.org/kana/frg-kana.html

http://www.Kashuba.Org/

==========

SULEWSKI

To: Martin Sulewski <Sul269@aol.com>

> My last name is Sulewski and i would like to find out where it come from and history behind it.

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 and can be searched here), there were 2,245 Polish citizens named Sulewski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 154, Bialystok 109, Gdansk 558, Lomza 561, and Suwalki 274. Thus the name is found all over Poland but is most common in the northcentral to northeastern part of the country. 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.

According to Polish experts, Sulewski, pronounced roughly "soo-LEFF-skee," simply refers to the name of a place where a given family lived at some point centuries ago. It would mean "one from Sulew or Sulewo" or some similar place name; it could also refer to places named Sulejow or Sulejewo. There are a number of places by these names, and there's no way to know which one the surname refers to in a given family's case, except through detailed genealogical research that establishes the exact social, geographic, linguistic, and historical context in which the name came to be associated with that particular family. That is beyond the scope of what I can do.

==========

S~WIATOPEL~K

To: Inga <mikey.smith@ntlworld.com>

> I am looking for any family - distant or close of my father who died three years ago. Pls can you give me a little information about our surname Swiatopelk - Mirski

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 and can be searched here), there were 13 Polish citizens named S~WIATOPEL~K-MIRSKI (using S~ to stand for the accented S, and L~ for the L with a slash or crossbar, pronounced much like English W). The name is pronounced roughly "shvyah-TOPE-ewk MEER-skee" (the last syllable of the first name sounds like "elk" but with a W sound instead of an L). These 13 Poles lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 1, Lodz 3, Pila 4, Szczecin 4, Wroclaw 1. 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.

S~wiatopel~k is a name of ancient Slavic origin, spelled many different ways, including Russified Svyatopelk, Svyatopulk, Svyatopluk, etc. It comes from ancient Slavic terms meaning "mighty, powerful" (in modern Slavic languages that root has come to mean "holy, sacred," but back centuries ago it meant "mighty, powerful") and "regiment, division of the army." The ancient Slavs were very warlike, and often gave their children names of good omen meant to make them glorious in battle. This one presumably was meant to help a child grow up to be a valued member of the division of fighters in which he fought.

Mirski would generally come from the name of a place beginning Mir- or Mier-. There are several places it could refer to, and without detailed info on a specific family there is no way to know which one is relevant in their particular case. With any luck your research may unearth facts that will help you determine exactly which place the name refers to in your family's case.

==========

S~WITAL~A

To: Andre Switala <switala@online.de>

[Referring to data on S~wital~a online:]

> But I have some questions about that info: What says the number 4,753? Is that the number of families, the number of persons or the number of entries in the telephone directory?

It means that 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 and can be searched here), there were 4,753 Polish citizens named Switala. This data was compiled from a Polish government agency database, not from telephone directories. Data was incomplete for some provinces of Poland, but the compilation drew on data for approximately 94% of the population as of 1990. So the data is not perfectly accurate, but it is better than what we had before the Slownik was published (namely, nothing).

> Do you know if the name is concentrated in a specific region of Poland or don't you know anything about the distribution of the name?

There was not enough room in my book to give details on the distribution of any name; I would have liked to, but the book was already over 600 pages and to include such data would have made the book so large it could not have been printed and sold for a reasonable price. Also, with the majority of Polish names, the distribution data is useless; the majority of names are too widespread to offer any help whatever in tracing a particular name. Every day people write me in the hope that I can tell them "Your surname proves your family came from one and only one place, namely X, and therefore you don't have to waste time researching, that's where the family came from." Every day I have to disappoint them. I estimate fewer than 5% of Polish names offer any useful clue whatsoever as to where a family by that name originated.

Looking in the Slownik, I find that the largest numbers of Switala's lived in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 533; Czestochowa 693; Kalisz 239; Katowice 875; Leszno 205; Opole 268; Poznan 354; Zielona Gora 224. So the name is most common in southcentral and western Poland; more than that I cannot say.

> There are also several forms of writing in Germany (where I am from) of that name, such as Switala, Switalla, Schwitala, Schwitalla, Schwittalla... As I am just starting with genealogy and collecting information about these names I don't know if all these families are from places which now belong to Poland. So if you can send me additional information it would be great.

Those are all simply spelling variations, attempts to represent the name phonetically. In Polish the first letter, the S, has an accent over it which gives it a sound similar to German SCH (although Polish SZ sounds more like SCH, the Polish accented S has a soft, hissing sound perceptibly different from SZ or German SCH). In that name the L is not the standard L but rather an L with a slash through it, which sounds like the English letter W. Even in Polish this name has been spelled various ways, including Switala, Switalla, etc.

In records it is quite common to see names spelled inconsistently, even without complications due to the influence of different languages. Only happened in the last century or so have people begun to emphasize spelling a name the same way consistently, and only during that time that literacy has become so widespread that it became possible to standardize spellings. Whether one studies American records or English or French or German, one need only go back a few decades and one begins to see names spelled many different ways. So all those forms you cite are simply variations in spelling of S~wital~a, which is the standard Polish spelling of the name.

> By the way, I did lookups in several German surname books, almost all tried to derive Switala from names like Schwindt, Schwind. But maybe they did not really think about the fact where the name comes from...

I've found as a rule it is best to consult Polish authorities on Polish names, Germans on German names, Lithuanians on Lithuanian names, etc. It is too easy to make a mistake about name origins if one does not possess a truly deep, comprehensive knowledge of a language, its history, and its ways of forming names.

This name S~wital~a comes from a Slavic root meaning "light, dawn, daybreak," which appears in Russian svet, Ukrainian svit, Polish s~wit, etc. In Polish names the suffix -al~a added to a root X usually means "one always doing X, one always exhibiting the quality or characteristic of X." So Switala meant literally "one associated with dawn, light; one always shining; one who typifies brightness." There is no connection with any German word, except perhaps a remote one with words coming from the same original Indo-European root.

==========

WOJTKOWICZ

To: Arthur Wojtkowicz <wojtkowicz@uscity.net>

> could you please help me with my surname, I am trying to find the roots of Wojtkowicz family.

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "voit-KO-veech." 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 and can be searched here), there were 103 Polish citizens by that name. They were scattered in small numbers all over the country, with no significnat concentration in any one area.

The suffix -owicz means "son of," so Wojtkowicz means "son of Wojtek or Wojtko," something like that. The first part of the name could come from two sources: it can be a nickname for a person named Wojciech, meaning basically "son of Wojciech"; or it can come from the term wo~jt, an official who was a sort of village headman. So the name means either "Wojciech's son" or "the wo~jt's son." I think it's especially likely to come from the first name, however, because Wojtek is a common and popular Polish nickname or affectionate short form of Wojciech.

There is no linguistic equivalent of that name in English -- it comes from ancient Slavic roots meaning literally "war-joy," probably given as a name by parents hoping their child would grow up to take joy in battle and thus be a fierce and successful fighter. But due to a historical accident, the Slavic name Wojciech (or in Czech Vojtech) has long been closely associated with the Germanic first name Albrecht or Adalbert or Albert. So a Pole bearing the first name Wojciech usually came to be known as Alebrt in English-speaking countries. That's probably not directly relevant to the discussion of this surname, but it may be a useful fact worth knowing if you dig into the family history. People trying to learn something about the name Wojciech are often puzzled to find it treated as if it were the same as Albert, when it's obviously not! But centuries ago the Slavic saint Wojciech took the name Albert at confirmation in honor of his sponsor, the Bishop of Magdeburg, Albert; and since then the two names have been connected culturally, even though linguistically they are completely unrelated.

I should add that in Polish you often have two forms of the same basic surname, differing only in ending, -owicz or -ewicz. So it's not surprising that the surname Wojtkiewicz also exists, pronounced roughly "voit-K-YEAH-veech." As of 1990 there were some 2,624 Polish citizens by that name, so it tends to be the more common form. Wojtkowicz and Wojtkiewicz mean exactly the same thing; the only difference is that in some areas there's a tendency to add -owicz rather than -ewicz to certain name forms. For some reason the form of this particular name with -ewicz is more common than the one with -owicz. Hard to say why, however; sometimes there is no readily apparent rhyme or reason to surname usage and popularity.

I mention all this only because it is possible you will see both forms in family records. To Poles Wojtkiewicz and Wojtkowicz are obviously different forms of the same name, and they didn't also worry too much about consistency of name forms in old records. So if you do some research into your family history, you might want to keep an eye out for Wojtkiewicz as well.

==========

STULIGOWA

To: Jadwiga Saba <jadwigasaba@hotmail.com>

The encoding of your message mangled the 7th letter, but I assume the name
is Stuliglowa, pronounced roughly "stoo-lee-G'WOE-vah." I will proceed on
that assumption, because I can find no other name in Polish that fits the
pattern STULIG_OWA.

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 63 Polish
citizens by this name. They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 5,
Czestochowa 4, Katowice 3, Koszalin 8, Przemysl 1, Radom 1, Rzeszow 14,
Szczecin 24, Tarnow 3. 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.

Of course I have no way of knowing whether any of these people would be
related to you. Only research into the family history could establish that;
it would involve trying to trace the family back in records, generation by
generation -- which may be quite difficult in your case. But without
detailed knowledge of the family history, the most one can do is analyze
what a name means literally and then speculate on how it was probably
understood when it first developed.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. Obviously the -glowa part comes from the noun _glowa_, "head." Rymut says the Stuli- part comes from the verb _stulic_, "press together, squeeze together, close up." So the name
probably began as a nickname meaning something like "close your head" or
"put your heads together." I don't speak colloquial Polish, so I'm not certain how Poles would understand this name. It suspect it may have been another way of saying "Shut your mouth!" In other words, "Press your head together" makes sense only if you imagine it to mean pressing one's lips together to close the mouth. I imagine this began as a nickname for an ancestor who had a habit of using this phrase, or perhaps one whom people somehow associated with this action.

That is how I interpret it, but I don't have the time or resources to do
more detailed research on names; all I can give is "quick and dirty"
analysis. If you would like to get an opinion from the real experts and
don't mind spending about $20, you can write the Anthroponymic Workshop of
the Polish Language Institute in Krakow. The staff consists of Polish
scholars specializing in name origins, with access to large collections of
material on the subject; there is surely no one else in the world better
qualified to answer questions on Polish names. They can correspond in
English, and the charge for researching a single name is seldom more than
$20-30. You write to them with your request, and the individual who does the
research will reply, and will tell you how much he/she is charging and how
best to send payment. It is usually quite painless, and most people I hear
from are very satisfied with the results; but the staff has been a bit slow
lately in answering letters -- they have lots of other work to do, after
all -- so patience is advisable. If you'd like to give this a try, here's
the address:

     Instytut Jezyka Polskiego PAN
     Pracownia Antroponimiczna
     Al. Mickiewicza 31
     31-120 Kraków
     POLAND

If you do hear from them and they give you a really good reply, I'd love to
hear what they say. I will be revising my book on Polish surnames in the
near future, and would love to be able to repeat this information, for the
benefit of any other Stuliglowas who may read it.

==========

SZARWARK

> I am writing because I would like to know more about "Szarwark". Where the word came from, what it means to Polish people, and how someone would get that as a family name. Any help that you can provide me will be very much appreciated.

In Polish this name is pronounced roughly "SHAR-vark." In both cases
the -ar- would rhyme with "car" or "far." 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 and is now online as a searchable database at
http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 229 Polish citizens
named SZARWARK. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces:
Bydgoszcz 50, Pila 30, Poznan 31, and Tarnow 61. 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 the name is found all over Poland, with some
concentration in the areas near the northwestern town of Bydgoszcz and the
southeastern town of Tarnow.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles], saying it comes from the common noun _szarwark_. That term referred to compulsory labor service peasants performed for their lords. Peasants were required to do various kinds of labor service for the use of the land their lord let them farm, and it was
not unusual for those labor obligations to include a day or two of
_szarwark_ a week. I suppose peasants who did not inherit land might also do
_szarwark_ for a living. The term in Polish comes from German _Scharwerk_,
meaning "compulsory labor," and could theoretically refer to any of the
various kinds of labor services peasants were required to do by their lords.
But over time this particular term came to be associated most of all with
road maintainance work, and the surname suggests you had an ancestor who did
this work.

I should add that it's also possible in a given case the surname might refer
to the name of a place where an ancestor came from. There's a Szarwark in
the general area of Tarnow; so if a given Szarwark family came from that
area, it's possible the name might have started in their case as a way of
saying "one from Szarwark." Only genealogical research might clarify for
sure how this surname came to be associated with your family, by
establishing where they came from and thus indicating whether the name more
likely referred to the labor service or to the village name (which, in turn,
must have come from that term for labor service).

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

==========

KARASIEWICZ/KARASKIEWICZ

> my name is tony karasiewicz, can you help me ? what does it mean ?
> karasiewicz = karaskiewicz ?

The ending -ewicz means "son of," so KARASIEWICZ means "son of Karas." That name comes from the noun _karas_, "crucian carp" (a kind of fish). Most
likely Karas was a nickname for an ancestor one who liked to fish for carp,
or sell them, or eat them, or somehow reminded people of a carp.

So the name means essentially the same as KARASKIEWICZ, except the added -k- in that name gives the meaning of "little." Karasiewicz is "son of the
carp," and Karaskiewicz is "son of the little carp." That's the only difference.

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 and is now
online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 2,600 Polish
citizens named Karasiewicz. The largest numbers lived in the following
provinces: Warsaw 304, Poznan 266, Plock 261, Elblag 161, and Bydgoszcz 110. 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 the name is found all over Poland, with no real concentration in any one area. It's particularly common in the areas near the cities mentioned, Warsaw, Poznan, Plock, Elblag, and Bydgoszcz. But this really tells us nothing about where a specific Karasiewicz family came from. Only research into the history of that family might shed light on that question.

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

==========

LIEBOWITZ

> I was perusing your site in search of some information on my last name, 
> Liebowitz. I saw that the ending -owicz means "son of" and am 
> assuming that -owitz is an Americanized version of it. Is this a 
> reasonable assumption?

You're close. The -owitz form is associated mostly with German, either
directly or by way of Yiddish. An English-speaking person who heard the
ending -owicz and tried to spell it phonetically would tend to write -ovich
or -oveech. But Germans have a tendency to turn -owicz into -owitz
(pronounced roughly "oh-wits"). This may just be a German tendency for no
particular reason; or it may go back to early contact with Poles, who
originally tended to use suffixes -ic ("eets") and -owic ("oh-veets"), and
only later, due to Belarusian influence, changed the final sound from -c
("ts") to -cz ("ch").

I've never had a chance to find out WHY -owicz became -owitz under German
influence, and my speculation above may be completely wrong. All I know is
that you do often see Germanized forms of Polish names with -owitz (less
often as -owitsch, even though phonetically that is more accurate).

> However, Lieb is not a first name I have ever heard and it is not listed on
> behindthename.com, an exhaustive but surely incomplete listing of first
> name etymologies. Is "lieb" perhaps another word in Polish, a noun or
> adjective? And if so, how can the "son of" ending be reconciled with
> this? Or perhaps "lieb" is a modified spelling of "leib" (e.g. Annie
> Leibovitz) which has some other signficance?

LIEB is a German adjective meaning "dear, beloved," and it appears in first
names, especially associated with Jews, either in German spelling or
modified by Yiddish influence. So we see the feminine first name Liba or
Liebe, masculine first names Liber or Lieber, Libman/Lipman or
Liebmann/Lipmann, and so forth. (Note that Germans spell the "ee" sound
as -ie-, but in Yiddish it is spelled with the vowel yodh, usually rendered
in our alphabet as -i-; so Yiddish Liber is pronounced just like German
Lieber).

As I said, these names tend to show up mainly among Jews. It wouldn't
surprise me if you see them occasionally among Christians -- it would be
natural for any people to call a child a name meaning "dear one," after all.
Still, when I have seen names with Lieb- or Lib-, they most often turn out
to be borne by Jews.

In any case, LIEBOWITZ is presumably a German version of LIBOWICZ, "son of Lib or Liba" or some similar first name deriving, directly or through
Yiddish, from that Germanic root meaning "dear, beloved."

I should add that confusion is possible with another first name used
exclusively by Jews, Leib or (as Poles spell it) Lejb, pronounced roughly
"lape" as if rhyming with "tape." This is an ancient Hebrew name from the
Bible (Genesis 49:9), and strictly speaking has nothing to do with those
much less ancient Germanic names from the root meaning "dear" that I
mentioned above. But factor in dialect variations, human error, and other
factors, and is entirely possible that LEJBOWICZ, "son of Lejba," might
sometimes end up being rendered LIEBOWITZ. It's not "correct," but many of
the things you run into with surnames are not correct.

Thus for instance I believe the surname of Annie Leibovitz is Jewish and
means "son of Leib." If everyone was an expert on languages and names and no
one ever made a mistake, it would be regarded as completely distinct from
Liebowitz, not to be confused with it. But in fact the names are often
confused, and it's easy to understand why.

For more background info on Jewish names, there are several good files at
this site:

   http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/#Names

To sum up, names ending -owitz are usually German or Yiddish versions of
names Poles use with the ending -owicz (and Russians with -ovich, although
of course they spell it in the Cyrillic alphabet). The name you're asking
about should generally mean "son of Lib or Liba," referring to an ancestor
with a given name derived from the German root meaning "dear, beloved" and
used in a number of given names popular historically among Ashkenazic Jews.
But due to the similar sound and spelling it can easily be confused with
LEIBOVITZ or LEJBOWICZ, "son of Leib," which is an ancient Hebrew name
associated with Judah.

==========

TRIKOWSKY

> I have a looking for some sort of background information on
> my surname. It is TRIKOWSKY. I have been able to trace
> the name back to a small village in what was Bessarabia Russian.
> It was an area of Germans born in Russia. My confusion lays
> in the name itself I am finding conflicting information of the
> origins of the name .Is it originally from Poland then possibly
> they migrated into Russia or is it a Russian name. One last twist
> is that my family has always spoke German and consider
> themselves German. But when I started digging around I
> began to have questions. Most of the very few people I have
> found to posses the name lived in Germany but I was not able
> to contact them. Really what I'm looking for here is whether
> my name is Polish, Russian, or German

The first thing we have to be clear on is that ethnic identity may have
nothing to do with a name's linguistic origin. If you go back to your 128
closest ancestors and it turned out 127 of them were Poles but 1 was German,
his name might be the one you'd happen to inherit. So even though in this
hypothetical case you are by blood 99% Polish, yet your name would be
German. This subject gets very complicated, but I want to make clear from
the start I'm talking about what LANGUAGE the name originated in.

We can scratch German -- it is definitely not of German linguistic origin.
That ending spelling -owski or -ovsky or -owsky originated in a Slavic
language, not a German one. Talking about a German named Trikowsky is like
talking about a Swede named Yamaguchi; the two don't go together. Now since
people can and do travel and relocate, you might have a Trikowsky living in
Germany -- in fact, it's not at all unusual to find Germans bearing Slavic
names, since the Germans and Slavs have been mixing and mingling for
centuries. And as I say, it's possible 99% of a Trikowsky's ancestors were
German. But the name is not.

It's tougher saying whether the name is Polish or Russian, because many,
many names and other words are similar in the various Slavic languages. From
the form alone it is often difficult or impossible to tell whether a specific name is Polish or Czech or Russian or Ukrainian.

However, of all the Slavs, Poles are the ones most likely to bear a name
ending -owski or -ovsky or -ovsky. The formation X-owski is one that most
often originated among Poles. Thus the composer Tchaikovsky seemed to be as
Russian as they come; but his name appears to be a Russified version of
Polish Czajkowski, meaning "of or from Czajki or Czajkowo" or some other
place with a name beginning Czajk- (as Poles spell it) or Tchaik- (as we
spell the Russian version in our alphabet). So somewhere in his ancestry
there was probably a Pole or Ukrainian who either came from or owned a place
with a name beginning that way.

I would be lying if I said all names in the form X-owski or X-owsky were
Polish. You do see Ukrainians and Belarusians with names of that sort. But
they tend to be rarer, especially among Russians. They tend to use just the
ending -ov or -ev, with any -ski added. You can read more about this at:

   http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_endings.htm 

All things considered, I'd say TRIKOWSKY is the name Poles spell TRYKOWSKI, pronounced roughly "trick-OFF-skee." Poles normally avoid the combination -RI-, preferring -RY- (but Russians have no problem with the
combination (-RI-). Also Poles never spell it -sky, always -ski.

But if you look at the name and sound it out, you'll realize TRIKOWSKY and
TRYKOWSKI are just slightly different spellings of the same name.
Inconsistent spelling of names is extremely common when dealing with people
from central and eastern Europe; it doesn't pay to get too hung up on
spelling, better to deal with the sounds involved. This name could show up
in records as TRYKOVSKY or TRICKOFFSKE or TRIKOWSKY, etc. But the standard Polish spelling is TRYKOWSKI. I suspect TRIKOWSKY is a Germanized version of that name, which would look kind of like this in the pre-1917 Cyrillic alphabet:

   T P N K O B C K I N

The 3rd letter looks like a backwards N, and the final letter looks like a
backwards N with a little curve over it. The other letters look just like ones we use, but P is like the sound we write R, B is like our V, and C is like our S.

While frequency and derivation of this name in Poland is not directly useful
to you -- since your ancestors seem to have been Poles who resettled in
Bessarabia (which was not uncommon) -- such data can sometimes be helpful.
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 and is now
online as a searchable database at
http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 283 Polish citizens
named Trykowski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces:
Bydgoszcz 31, Elblag 28, Gdansk 38, and Torun 87. 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 shows up most often in northcentral to
northwestern Poland. I have no data for Bessarabia or any other country, so
I can't give you any ideas on how common the name may be there.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it can come from the
root seen in the noun _tryk_, "an ungelded ram," and in the verb _trykac_,
"to butt with the forehead." Names in the form X-owski mean literally "of
the _ of X," where the blank is filled in with something so obvious it
didn't have to be spelled out -- usually "kin" or "place."

So TRYKOWSKI probably started out meaning either "of the kin of the ram" or
"one from the place of the ram." The Tryk part may have been a nickname of
an ancestor who raised rams or reminded people of a ram, or something along
those lines. Then Trykowski would have been the way people referred to his
kin or to people who came from a village or settlement or farm he owned or
founded. It's quite possible the family got the name in Poland, then later
moved to Bessarabia. As I said, that was not particularly uncommon; we find
names of Polish origin all over that whole area.

==========

AGOPSOWICZ

> Do you have any information on the surname Agopsowicz ???
> If you do, could you please send me info?

> Regarding the last name Agopsowicz. Thats my maiden
> name. If you have any info regarding this name. Can you email
> me at my home email address- sjclow@sasktel.net. I live in
> Regina, Sask, Canada. Where there is a lot of Agopsowicz's
> here form the Zehner area. Love to hear from you regarding
> this name.

This one is fascinating. The suffix -owicz means "son of," so this means
"son of Agops." But I had never run across that name before, and the -ops
ending did not sound right for a Polish or Slavic name. But then I looked in
a book on Polish surnames by Jan Stanislaw Bystron, _Polskie Nazwiska_, and
sure enough, he mentioned Agopsowicz! It is listed among names coming
originally from Armenian, and means "son of Jacob" -- apparently in Armenian
this name is Agop or something similar. So the name, at least, would suggest
an ancestor of the family was Armenian, but later came to Poland or the
Slavic regions east of Poland. If they had held fast to their Armenian roots, the name would be something like Agopyan, since most native Armenian names end with that suffix -yan. The fact that the name ends in -owicz suggests they came to be Polonized, since that suffix is Polish (or, in the spelling -ovich or -ovych, Ukrainian or Russian or Belarusian).

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 67 Polish
citizens named Agopsowicz. They were scattered in tiny numbers all over the
country. The only "concentration" was in southcentral and southwest Poland,
in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (8), Krakow (8), and Wroclaw (13). These
numbers show just how widely scattered the name is, if these are the largest
numbers in any provinces. Unfortunately I don't have access to further
details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I have.

I also looked in an index of names appearing in the 15-volume Polish
gazetteer _Slownik geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego_ (Geographical
Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland), published in the late 1800's. It shows
that there were several villages or estates owned by people named
Agopsowicz, so clearly this name can be one borne by nobles. Here are the
four places this work mentions and their owners as of the time of
publication:

Balince, village, Kolomyja county, owner Jakob de Hasso Agopsowicz [Vol. I,
p. 88].
Bazar, village, Czortkow county, owner Jozef Agopsowicz [Vol. I, p. 121]
Buczaczki, village, Kolomyja county, owner Kajetan Agopsowicz [Vol. I, p.
437]
Czernelica, village, Horodenka county, owner Antoni Agopsowicz [Vol. II, p.
xvi].

All these places are now in the country of Ukraine, which used to be ruled
by Poland. If you want to find these places on a map, it is possible you
might be able to find them at this Website:

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

Or you might find some useful material at the InfoUkes Website:

    www.infoukes.com

Or at this Website, which specializes in research in Galicia (the former
crownland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that consisted of what is now
southeastern Poland and western Ukraine): 

   www.halgal.com

Since at least some Agopsowiczes were noble, you might be able to learn more
about them if you post a question to the mailing list Herbarz-L. It is frequented by gentlemen with access to various armorials and libraries, and very often they are able to provide some information on specific noble families and their coats of arms.  To subscribe (which costs nothing), send an E-mail message with just the word SUBSCRIBE to this address:

     HERBARZ-L-request@rootsweb.com

No one reads this note -- a computer will process it automatically, add you
to the mailing list, and send you a brief note explaining procedures. Then you can post a note to the list itself, where it will be read by the members, at this address:

   HERBARZ-L@rootsweb.com

It's possible they can tell you more about this name or family.

==========

FALIKOWSKI, FALKOWSKI, CHWALIKOWSKI

> I was hoping you could help me out.  My surname is Falikowski.
> When I researched coats of arms, I found Falkowski, but no Falikowski,
> with the "i" after the L.   Do you know whether the two names are
> related?  Are they derivations of Falk?   Any other information that you
> could share would be most appreciated.

This is a tough call, because FALIKOWSKI (pronounced roughly
"fah-lee-KOFF-skee") obviously comes from the same basic root as FALKOWSKI; but that doesn't necessarily imply any other relationship. Just as the English surnames Jones and Johnson both come from the first name "John," but would usually be totally different names borne by different families,
Falikowski clearly has that same basic root _fal-_ as Falkowski; but that
signifies only a linguistic relationship, not a family one.

I should add, though, that  just as Jones and Johnson could conceivably be
confused because they're similar names, so Falikowski and Falkowski might be
confused. A family properly known as Falikowski might sometimes be called
Falkowski by error, and vice versa. But that's a matter of human error,
which must always be factored into our research. The names would usually be
borne by distinct families, not necessarily connected in any way.

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 104
Polish citizens named Falikowski. The largest numbers lived in the following
provinces: Walbrzych, 24, and Wroclaw, 67. 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 primarily in southwestern Poland, in the region called Silesia.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says that like so many names beginning Fal-, this one is a modified form of names originally beginning
Chwal-. That root is pronounced with a guttural "ch" (as in German "Bach")
followed by "vahl." It's a bit of a mouthful, but Poles can handle it.
Still, for some reason, in some parts of Poland there was a tendency to
simplify that combination of sounds to a simpler one that sounds much like
English "fall."

So FALIKOWSKI is a variant of CHWALIKOWSKI. Professsor Rymut says that name appears in records as early as 1395, whereas FALIKOWSKI shows up as early as 1399. He says Falikowski refers to a family connection with any of a number of places named Chwalikowice and Chwalikowo. There are several places by those names, and from the surname alone there's no way to tell for sure which one a given Falikowski family came from. Only research into the family history might establish that.

Here's where it gets complicated -- Rymut gives FALKOWSKI, appearing in
records as early as 1448, as potentially having the same derivation. In
other words, both Falikowski and Falkowski can mean "one from Chwalikowice
or Chwalikowo." In some cases the surname retained that -i-, in other cases
it dropped it over time. This makes it even more possible that Falikowski
might sometimes be the same as Falkowski. It would depend a lot on the
individual families involved. Some might have gone by either name; others
might have insisted on one or the other.

FALKOWSKI, however, clearly can also refer to a connection with places named Falki, Falków, Falkowo, etc., which do not have that -i-. FALIKOWSKI would refer to a place with a name beginning Chwalik- or Falik-. So in some instances the presence of that -i- can indicate a different derivation. The problem is, it doesn't always -- you can't rely on that being true every time.

There's only so far you can go by analyzing name origins. There comes a
point where you say, "OK, that's what I can tell you. From here on you're on
your own. These CAN be connected -- but only your research can tell you
whether they were or were not." That's the point we've reached. Both these
names can have the same derivation, but only you can determine whether they
are actually connected in your family history.

I wish I could give you a simple, straightforward answer. But sometimes the
answer is not simple, and pretending otherwise is a lie. I hope I've told
you enough to help you with your research. That's what I try to do --
outline the possibilities, so that you can make informed choices based on
what you discover as you trace your family history.