BAL~ABAN

To: danuta <dannypps@hotmail.com>

> Dear Sir, my grandparents name was Balaban the L being
> the Polish L with a line through it. Could you please tell me
> anything about the roots of this name?

Online we often use l~ to stand for the Polish hard l with a slash or crossbar. We do that because the actual Polish character will not display correctly unless all concerned have configured their systems to support use of Unicode, and specifically the Central European character set. For many people that is more trouble than it's worth, but l~ will display consistently on all systems without any adjustments. So we use it whenever it is essential to distinguish plain l from slash-l but we cannot be sure the Polish character will display properly.

So online I spell this name Bal~aban. It is pronounced roughly "bah-WAH-bahn."

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 520 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 33, Krosno 41, and Lublin 30. 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 the country, but is definitely more common in the east, not far from the border with Belarus and Ukraine. In fact there is reason to believe the name originated in that area, but has since spread all over Poland.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1414 and comes from the noun balaban, which in Belarusian and Ukrainian is a term for a kind of falcon; he adds that the name formerly appeared mainly in the Kresy Wschodnie, the lands of Belarus and western Ukraine once ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He adds that this same noun bal~aban also appears in dialect meaning "potato."

Alexander Beider also mentions this name in his Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland, saying it comes from the Ukrainian noun balaban, a kind of falcon. He says the term bal~aban is also used in Polish to mean "duffer, muff, oaf, lout; potato." Finally he says in Russian balaban means "chatterer; stupid fellow." So the name as used by Jews has the same basic meaning as as when used by Christians, but it can also refer to an ancestor who was an oaf or a big-mouth or not too bright.

To sum up, as with many words from which surnames derived, there isn't a single, clearcut derivation for Bal~aban. The primary meaning is as a term for a kind of falcon, encountered mainly in Belarus and western Ukraine; that's the first association I would consider in regard to the name's meaning. In some areas the dialect meaning of "potato" might also apply. Tthat same basic term has also been used in dialect in a more colloquial sense as a term for a rather stupid fellow, one who was an oaf or a big-mouth.

The only way one might establish for sure which association applies in the case of a given Bal~aban family is by tracing the family history as far back as possible. Sometimes this will uncover additional information that will shed light on exactly when and how and why a specific name came to be associated with a specific family. I cannot do that kind of detailed research for you; all I can do is tell you the meanings this name can have. But with any luck perhaps you will succeed in establishing which of those meanings applied to your Bal~aban ancestors. My guess is it will come from the Belarusian/Ukrainian term meaning "falcon," but without more information that is simply a guess.

==========

BARABASZ

To: Jim Tomaszek <jtomaszek@ameritech.net>

> I came across your excellent web site and found my last name
> - or a derivative of it, but could not find my grandmother's
> maiden name, Barabasz.

Barabasz (pronounced roughly “bah-RAH-bahsh”) is a fascinating name. It's not as rare as one might think. As of 1990 there were 1,727 Polish citizens by this name, living all over the country, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Bielsko-Biala 168, Katowice 123, Pila 140, Tarnow 136. So the name is found all over the country, and is not concentrated in any one area, although it tends to show up more often in the southcentral to southeastern part of the country than elsewhere.

Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions it in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He said it appears in Polish records as early as the 13th century, and is simply the Polish version of the Biblical name Barabbas. It comes from an Aramaic expression meaning literally "father's son," and some Biblical scholars think it was an invented or figurative name.

As for how and why a Polish Catholic could end up with such a name, there are several possibilities. We find quite a few names from the Bible of Hebrew or Latin origin that seem kind of inappropriate. It may just be that people figured any name they heard only in church was holy and therefore fit for a Christian. Or it could be someone wanted to go by this name because he identified with Barabbas as a sinner who didn't deserve mercy and was saved by the unjust murder of Jesus -- a person steeped in Christian piety and humility might come to think this way.

Another theory -- one that strikes me as particularly plausible -- is that people with odd names such as Pil~at (Pilate) and Barabasz may have been called that because at some point they played these characters in one of the church morality plays sometimes put on to teach the people their Bible and instruct them in Christian virtues. A Passion Play would be a popular sort of amateur theatrical, and a character who played Barabbas might very well end up with that as a nickname. To me, this explanation seems the only plausible way to account for pious Catholics bearing the name of Pilate, who sentenced Christ to execution, or Barabbas, a thug who was set free in Christ’s place.

Still, as I said, you run into lots of odd names from the Bible, such as Betlej (from Bethlehem) and Jordan (from the river) -- it may well be people figured "If it's in the Bible it's a good enough name for me." And some of them may not have understood the Scripture they heard in church well enough to realize Barabbas wasn't exactly a good guy! So about all we can say for sure is, the name means "Barabbas," and suggests that at some point people must have figured this was an appropriate name for an ancestor -- as to exactly why, we can only speculate.

==========

BIEN~KOWSKI - BINKOWSKI - BIN~KOWSKI

To: David Binkowski <dcbinkowski@ameritech.net>

> Being brief, I have a name that I've had trouble locating
> information about. Last name: Binkowski
> I've recently become fascinated with my polish ancestry,
> polish history, etc. There is alot I didn't know about it,
> and its not what I expected !

In Polish Binkowski can be spelled usually spelled with a plain N or with an accent over the N, which I represent online as N~. Both Binkowski and Bin~kowski are pronounced roughly "bean-KOFF-skee," but the first syllable in Binkowski sounds a little closer to English "bin," whereas the first syllable in Bin~kowski sounds a little closer to "bean." But it's a pretty subtle difference, one Poles hear easily but foreigners often miss.

Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut mentions both names in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. In origin both names began as variants of Bien~kowski, which means little more than "kin of little Ben" or "one from the place of little Ben," where Benk- or Bienk- or Bin~ko- come from nicknames or short forms of the first names Benjamin or Benedykt (Benedict). Surnames in the form X-owski are especially likely to refer to places with which the family was associated at some point centuries ago; if they were noble, they owned an estate with a name beginning with the X part, and if they were peasants, they lived and worked there. So in effect Bin~kowski means "one from Bi[e]n~ki" or "Bi[e]n~kow" or "Bi[e]n~kowo" or "Bi[e]n~kowice." There are quite a few places with these names, and the surname alone gives no clue which one a specific family came from. Only genealogical research might help you pin down which of those places the name refers to in your family's case.

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 3,419 Polish citizens named Bin~kowski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 448, Lodz 290, Plock 251, Radom 734, and Wloclawek 209. 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. Basically, this data tells us the name is found all over Poland, with no significant concentration in any one area.

There were 3,375 Polish citizens named Binkowski. They lived all over the county, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 212, Czestochowa 121, Gdansk 129, Kalisz 127, Katowice 257, Kielce 306, Leszno 132, Lodz 273, and Poznan 337. Basically, this just tells us the name is found all over, with no particular concentration in any one area, though it shows up most often in central to western Poland.

==========

DE~BIN~SKI - DEMBIN~SKI

To: David Dembinski <dave@davedembinski.com>

> Going from the information at your entry on Debowski/Dembkowski
> (http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_9.htm#DEBOWSKI),
> I'm guessing that my own surname of Dembinski carries essentially
> the same meaning (any differences between -in and -ow notwithstanding),
> though I'd certainly appreciate any thoughts to the contrary.
> Beyond that, I simply wanted to thank you for providing an
> accessable and excellent resource.

You're basically right -- the surname refers to a place name which ultimately comes from the word for "oak." So either Dembowski or Dembin~ski means "one from the place of the oaks." The Polish word for "oak" is da~b with the nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it and pronounced usually much like "own," but before a b or a p it sounds more like "om." When endings are added that nasal a usually changes to a nasal e, written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced more like "en" or "em." Online we use a~ and e~ to stand for those letters because you can't see the actual Polish letters unless you reconfigure your system to support use of the Central European character set, which is more trouble than it's worth.

Since -e~b- sounds like "emb," names with that letter combination are often spelled -emb-. So even in Poland you often see this name spelled either De~binski or Dembin~ski (with an accent over the n in both cases). They're pronounced the same, roughly "dem-BEAN-skee." As you research, keep both spellings in mind -- the same family might appear in one record as Dembin~ski, in another as De~binski.

As I said, De~binski/Dembinski and De~bowski/Dembowski both mean essentially "one from the place of the oaks." The difference is in the name of the places referred to. De~bowski/Dembowski refers to places named De~bów or De~bowo, whereas De~bin~ski/Dembin~ski refers to places named De~bno, De~bina, De~biany, and so forth. They all mean roughly the same thing, "place of the oaks," but as you can see, there are several different ways of saying that in Polish.

The problem is, there are quite a few villages in Poland with the names De~bno, De~bina, De~biany, and so on. From the surname alone there's no way to tell which one your particular family came from. Only genealogical research into your family's history might uncover facts that would shed light on that. If you trace your family back to a particular village, that might let you make a connection with a nearby place named De~bno or De~bina or whatever. But that's only possible if you can pin down exactly where in Poland the family came from -- and of course I don't have the resources to do that for you.

But you may succeed in doing 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 is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 3,612 Polish citizens named Dembin~ski. They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers in the following provinces: Poznan 683, Bydgoszcz 344, and Torun 339. 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 shows there is some concentration of this name in west-central to northwestern to north-central Poland. Still, it's not enough to shed any real light on exactly where a given Dembinski family might have come from.

There were also 3,648 Poles who used the spelling De~binski. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 328, Lublin 305, and Konin 293. This spelling is a spread a little more evenly over the whole country than Dembin~ski, with less of a concentration in any one area.

==========

JASIONOWSKI

To: Steve Kendall <Skndl@aol.com>

> A month ago I discovered that one of my grandfather's
> cousins was from Lomza. He was a catholic priest and I think
> he was ordained there. That was the only clue to my grandfather's
> origins that I had after 20 years of searching. The cousin's name
> was Jasionowski. Is that an important name in Lomza?

Jasionowski is pronounced roughly "yah-sho-NOFF-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 and is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 996 Polish citizens by this name. The largest number, 449, lived in the northeastern province of Suwalki, which is north of Lomza province. 71 Polish citizens lived in Lomza province, and another 71 lived in Warsaw province. So while this name is found all over Poland, it is most common in the northeastern part of the country. It sounds as if your Jasionowskis come from the general area where the name is most common, although the really big numbers show up a little north of Lomza.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it can refer to a number of different villages with names such as Jasionów, Jasionowa, and Jasionowo. Those places, in turn, take their name from jesion, "ash tree," so that their names mean "[place] of the ash trees" and Jasionowski can be interpreted as meaning "one from the place of the ash trees." But in most cases a Jasionowski family got that name because it came from a place with a name beginning Jasion-. What that place name meant was incidental to the surname's development.

If your relative was a priest, that could be a valuable lead. Priests have always enjoyed a position in high regard in Poland, and the Church tends to keep detailed records regarding them. You might find it worthwhile to write to the Diocese of Lomza (if at all possible, have someone translate your letter into Polish) -- say you're a relative of a priest and ask if they can give you any information on him. Here's the mailing address:

Kuria Diecezjalna
18-400 Lomza
ul. Sadowa 3
POLAND

They also have an e-mail address, Kuria@lomza.opoka.org.pl. I have no idea whether an e-mail would get an answer, especially if it's in English. But I don't see how it would hurt to try. The priest in charge of correspondence may ignore your note; then again, he may say, "Oh, I'll be glad to help the relative of a brother priest!" You never know till you try.

One last thing I would mention in regard to Lomza. The Polish Genealogical Society of Connecticut and the Northeast has a lot of members with roots in that area, and has done more work than anyone else I know to develop resources for that region. You might find it worthwhile to join. If you want to learn more, their Website is at www.pgsctne.org.

==========

KURZYDL~O

To: Deanna Kurzydlo <Deputy836@aol.com>

> Sir, I was unable to locate my family name of Kurzydlo.
> I am told we originated either in Poland or Austria. Any help
> you might be able to give would be greatly appreciated.

This is a Polish name -- if the family lived in "Austria," most likely they lived in that part of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that Austria seized during the Partitioning of Poland. It was called Galicia and consisted of what are now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. When a Pole is said to have come from "Austria," that's what it usually means -- he lived in southeastern Poland or western Ukraine, but at the time that area was ruled by the Austrian Empire (roughly 1815-1918).

The l in Kurzydlo is not plain l, but the Polish l with a slash or crossbar through it; online we use l~ to stand for that letter. Kurzydl~o is pronounced roughly "koozh-ID-woe."

Prof. Kazimierz Rymut's book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles] lists this name among those coming from the basic root kurz-, "dust." But he specifically mentions that the name Kurzydl~o appears in records as early as 1401, and is from the dialect term kurzydl~o, "decayed wood used to smoke bees away while collecting honey." So apparently when you wanted to collect honey from beehives, you used a kurzydl~o to help smoke the bees out. An ancestor would probably have been called by this name because he collected honey and used this kurzydl~o to do 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 is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 876 Polish citizens named Kurzydl~o. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Krakow 135, Tarnow 133, and Katowice 99. 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 is most common in the southcentral to southeastern region, near the cities of Katowice and Krakow and Tarnow.

==========

ORLOSKY - ORL~OWSKI

To: MaryAnn <leaton1@cfl.rr.com>

> I just read your web site with great interest. My grandfather's name is
> Olosky or perhaps Orlosky. I am doing genealogy and would be
> interested in knowing what the name means and anything else you
> can provide.

Well, Poles don't use the spelling -sky -- Polish spelling rules say it's always -ski, never -sky. So we know from the start the name is not spelled correctly. Also, relatively Polish names end with -oski. Usually that's a variant of names ending -owski. So odds are we're talking about either Olowski or Orl~owski (using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a slash through it, which sounds like our w).

Both those names are possible, but one is far more likely than the other. Orl~owski means "one from Orl~ów or Orl~owo" and as of 1990 there were over 21,000 Polish citizens by that name, living all over the country. Olowski, however, is extremely rare. So the numbers suggest you probably are talking about Orl~owski. That surname refers to a family connection at some point centuries ago with any of some 20 places with names beginning Orl-, from the Polish word for "eagle."

As I said above, Orl~owski in Polish is spelled not with plain L, but rather with the Polish hard l written with a slash through it and pronounced much like our W. Orl~owski sounds like "oar-WOFF-skee," but in everyday talk it often sounds more like "oar-WOSS-kee," which would be spelled phonetically as Orl~oski. Then when people by that name came to a country where no one knew anything about how to spell Polish names, the -ski could easily be changed to -sky.

I can't say for sure that's the name you're looking for, because I don't know any more about your ancestors than you know about mine. It's possible the name was something quite different and was changed drastically when your ancestors came to this country. I've seen Niedzialkowski turned into Coskey, and Indykiewicz turned into Endecavagh -- God only knows what Olosky or Orlosky might have been!

But if you want my best guess, I'd say it was Orl~owski, which means literally "of the eagle's _," where the blank is filled in with something so obvious it didn't have to be spelled out -- usually "kin" or "place." So Orl~owski can mean simply "kin of the eagle," referring to an ancestor who was nicknamed Orzel~ (the eagle). But most often names in the form X-owski refer to a family connection with a place that had a name beginning with the X part. So "one from Orl~ów or Orl~owo or Orl~owicze" generally will turn out to be the right interpretation.

But that still leaves more than a dozen places the name could refer to. The only way to find out which one your ancestors might have come from is through tracing the family history back in the records, generation by generation, till you find something spelling out the facts. At that point it may become possible to trace the family back to the exact place they left from in Europe; and at that point it may be possible to connect them with a specific one of those places with names beginning Orl~ow-.

==========

POKRYFKA - POKRYWKA - POKRYWKO

To: <slugbug@provide.net>

> My last name is Pokryfky. It is pronounced PO-KRUF-KA. It
> derives from the Russian-Polish border area. If you could
> find any information on my last name it would be greatly
> appreciated.

The closest match I can find in Polish is the name normally spelled Pokrywka. In Polish t is pronounced roughly "poke-RIFF-kah." It is sometimes spelled phonetically as Pokryfka, and a variation ending with -o rather than -a is sometimes seen, Pokrywko. But these are both just rare variants of this name, the standard form of which is Pokrywka. The name would not be spelled Pokryfky by Poles because Polish spelling rules say k can never be followed by y, only by i. And none of my sources mention either Pokryfki or Pokryfky. So I wll proceed on the assumption that the closest match I could find, Pokrywka, is the name you're looking for. (If it is not, I can't help you.)

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 1,772 Polish citizens named Pokrywka. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Zamosc 352, Przemysl 286, Poznan 196, and Rzeszow 163. 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 the country, but is most common in eastern Poland, along the current border with Ukraine -- but the Zamosc area, in particular, used to be included in Russian Poland back when much of Poland was seized and ruled by the Russian Empire. Obviously I have no way of knowing exactly where your ancestors came from; but it appears to me this name is most common in an area that might be consistent with the information you have.

There were 13 Polish citizens in 1990 who spelled it Pokryfka, all living in the province of Gdansk. 45 spelled it Pokrywko, with 25 in Warsaw province and 15 in Gdansk province. But as I say, those are rare variants of Pokrywka, of no particular independent significance.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions these forms of this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says Pokrywka appears in records as early as 1652 and comes from the noun pokrywka, which means "small lid, cover." Presumably it began as a nickname for an ancestor whom people, for some reason, associated with lids or covers. It's hard to say exactly why -- nicknames are often very inventive, and may make perfect sense if you were there at the time and knew how they got started, but otherwise may be very hard to figure out.

That's the best match I can find in my sources. I'm afraid the only way you may learn more is by tracing the family history in records, a process that may confirm the name's spelling and tell you more about exactly where the family came from. But without far more detailed information, this is all I can tell you. I hope it's some help, and wish you the best of luck with your research.

==========

SAPUTA

To: Jim Tomaszek <jtomaszek@ameritech.net>

> I came across your excellent web site and found my last name,
> but could not find my great-grandmother's maiden name,
> Saputa. It doesn’t sound very Polish to me. Could you help?

The variety of Polish surnames is something that overwhelms people when they first start studying the subject. There are literally hundreds of thousands, including many that don't "sound Polish."

Saputa is pronounced roughly "sah-POO-tah." As of 1990 there were 121 Polish citizens by this name, with the majority, 83, living in the province of Zamosc, in the southeast by the border with Ukraine. The rest were scattered in tiny numbers all over the country.

Prof. Rymut mentions Saputa in his book, saying names beginning Sap- usually come from the root seen in the verb sapac', "to wheeze, breathe heavily," and in the archaic noun sap, "a hissing, sibilant sound." Saputa probably began as a nickname for an ancestor who wheezed or had trouble breathing.

==========

SKE~DZIEL - SKENDZEL - SKIENDZIEL - SKIE~DZIEL - SKINDZIEL

To: renee@eotitle.com

> I have been searching without success for the name Skendzel,
> may be a different spelling than from poland.

Well, getting the correct spelling is pretty important for Polish surnames, because there are literally hundreds of thousands of them, and many differ from others by a single letter. So if you're one letter off, you may be talking about a completely different name.

To get an idea of what names might be relevant, I went to a Website with a searchable database of surnames borne by Polish citizens as of 1990:

http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html

You can use wild cards * for any number of letters and ? for a single letter. So I searched for SK*DZ*L, which should return all names that fit the basic pattern of this one. Sometimes that works well, sometimes it brings back too many possibilities. In this case it worked fairly well: almost all the names that came back were clearly variations of the same basic name, with various spellings and sometimes with endings such as -ewski added.

Of those names, the ones relevant to your question are Ske~dziel (using e~ to stand for the Polish nasal e with a hook under it), Skiendziel, Skie~dziel, and Skindziel. The rest of the names are either formed from these, or from some completely different root.

There were 3 Polish citizens named Ske~dziel (pronounced roughly "SKEN-jell"), all living in the northeastern province of Suwalki. There were 41 named Skiendziel (pronounced roughly "SK'YEN-jell"), with 27 in Suwalki province and the rest scattered in tiny numbers all over. There were 8 named Skie~dziel (pronounced the same as Skiendziel), all in Suwalki province. And there were 3 named Skindziel ("SKIN-jell"), all in Suwalki province.

So this name can be spelled several ways, but they all are pronounced very, very similarly. And they all show most often near Suwalki, in the northeastern corner, next to the border with Lithuania.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions these names in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says they all come from the Lithuanian name Skindelis, pronounced roughly "SKIN-dell-iss." He does not say what that name means.

So I checked in the 2-volume Lietuviu pavardziu zodynas, ed. Aleksandras Vanagas, Vilnius, "Mokslas," 1989. It discusses the Lithuanian surname Skindelis, saying it is likely to come from the Lithuanian noun skindelis, "rag, bit of torn clothing." As a personal name this could obviously have begun as a nickname for one dressed in rags, or a ragman, or something along those lines.

To sum up, this name can be spelled several ways, but they all sound more or less the same, close to "SKIN-jell." The name is concentrated in the Suwalki region, right by the border with Lithuania. That makes sense -- the name is clearly from a Lithuanian word meaning "rag." We often see a mixture of names near the borders, so that Polonized versions of Lithuanian names are common near the Polish-Lithuanian border. This name suggests an ancestor was probably of Lithuanian descent, and perhaps dressed in rags or sold or collected rags.

==========

STOLARSKI

To: Christopher R. Stolarski <crstolarski@yah00.com>

> I’ve recently become interested in the etymology and history of my
> Polish surname, Stolarski. While Web searches turn up
> far more Stolarskis than I could have ever imagined, it still doesn’t
> seem as “universal” as Kowalski or Lewandowski. In fact,
> I grew up in Milwaukee, Wis., but recently moved to Indianapolis,
> where the Polish population seems almost non-existent by
> comparison.

In Polish Stolarski is pronounced much like a combination of the three English words "stole-ARE-ski," with the accent on the second syllable.

By Polish standards it is a moderately common 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 and is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html), there were 6,850 Polish citizens by this name (including females who bore the feminine version Stolarska). They lived all over the country, with the largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 990, Czestochowa 585, Katowice 674, Kielce 361, and Lodz 308. Basically, a family by this name could come from practically anywhere in Poland.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says its first known appearance in records occurs in 1631, and it comes from the adjective stolarski, from the noun stolarz, a term for one who worked with wood. The dictionary gives "joiner, carpenter" as the English equivalents. In most cases we'd expect the name Stolarski began as a way of referring to the kin of the joiner. This explains why the name is not concentrated in any one area -- it could get started anywhere people spoke Polish and there were guys who made their living as woodworkers.

==========

SZCZODRUCH

To: Fred Szodruch <Szodruch@aol.com>

> My grandfather was born 1879 in a parish called Mierunski
> near Olecko. On varius Documents his name is spelled:
> Szczodruch. My roots can be followed back in this area to
> early 1700's!
> Close to Suwalki is a "spot on the Map" Called Szczodruchy
> near Raczki.
> Has my name a connection to this place?

I don't have the resources to research the origin of that place name, so I can't tell you for sure. But my guess is that the name of the place may come from your surname. I suspect it was called that because it was the place of the Szczodruchs.

One reason I say that is because of data on the surname's frequency and distribution. According to a database with data from 2002 on surnames of Polish citizens, there were 98 named Szczodruch. The database gave this breakdown of where they lived by province and county:

Dolnoslaskie province, Wroclaw county: 1 male
Kujawsko-Pomorskie province, municipal Torun county: 2 males, 1 female
Mazowickie province, Warsaw county: 3 males, 2 females
Wielkopolska province, Kolo county: 2 males, 1 female; Poznan county 1 female
Podlaskie province, Suwalki county: 3 males, 1 female; municipal Bialystok county, 1 female; municipal Suwalki county, 9 males, 8 females
Gdansk province, municipal Gdansk county: 1 female

Warminsko-Mazurskie province, Elk county: 3 males, 2 females; Lidzbark Warminski county, 2 males, 3 females; Olecko-Goldap county, 18 males, 20 females; Olsztyn county: 1 male; Goldap county, 8 males, 5 females

The numbers relevant here are the ones for Podlaskie province and Warminsko-Mazurskie province, since the area where Szczodruchy is located is very near the border, and Mieruniszki is in Suwalki county of Podlaskie province. The numbers for Suwalki and municipal Suwalki county are 12 males, 9 females, for a total of 21. The numbers for Warminsko-Mazurskie province, Olecko-Goldap and Goldap counties, the ones closest to Szczodruchy, total 26 males and 25 females, for a total of 51. Put those all together and you account for 72 of the 98 Polish citizens named Szczodruch. That's a high concentration to find in one pretty limited area.

So while I can't be certain, my guess is that the village of Szczodruchy was named for Szczodruchs who lived in that area. (Incidentally, there's another Szczodruchy near Lomza, also in northeastern Poland but a little farther south).

Another reason I think this is because Szczodruch makes sense as a name for a person, with Szczodruchy being a place name subsequently derived from Szczodruch. I say that because Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions Szczodruch in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it comes from the adjective szczodry, which means "generous, munificent." The -uch ending is used for affectionate diminutives, so that Szczodruch probably developed as a nickname for an ancestor, "little generous one." Common sense suggests this would be applied to a person rather than a place. Then once that ancestor's name came to be associated with his descendants, it would make sense that the area where they lived would come to be called Szczodruchy, as a short way of saying "the place where the Szczodruchs live." Place names derived from personal names -- typically the name of one who owned or founded a village or settlement there at some point -- are very common in that part of Poland.

Incidentally, the surname Szczodruch would be pronounced roughly "SH'CHODD-rook," except the final sound isn't a k, but more like the guttural ch in German "Bach."

Now what I've told you is my intepretation of a number of facts. I think it is very likely your ancestors were named Szczodruch, and the place they lived came to be called Szczodruchy.

==========

SZKLAR - SHKLAR

[name and address withheld by request]

> I would very much appreciate receiving your comments on my analysis of
> the origin and meaning of my surname -- Shklar.
> The polonized spelling of this name is Szklar ... My father,
> a Ukrainian, was born in 1913 and was an immigrant from
> the western Ukrainian province of Galicia, which of course
> used to be part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
> and, later, Poland.

> As far as I can tell, the root of this name derives from the noun
> szkl~o in Polish (sklo in Ukrainian) which means "glass", or from
> szklanka in Polish (skl'anka in Ukrainian) which means "drinking
> glass".

> Thus, Shklar or Szklar (and their common variants Sklar, Skliar, etc.)
> would mean "glassmaker" or "he who works with glass".
> This may also be the origin of the surname Glassman, which would be
> the literal translation of "Shklar" into English.

You don't need my help -- you've figured it out perfectly. This name does indeed come from a noun meaning "glassmaker," created by adding the suffix -ar[z] to the root seen in Polish szkl~o and Ukrainian sklo, "glass." As you know, the form of that noun meaning "glassmaker" varies slightly in different Slavic languages -- in Polish it is Szklarz, in Ukrainian Shkliar (as we would render it in our alphabet, but it would often be simplified in English to Shklar or even Sklar). It's the same word, allowing for slight differences due to linguistic preferences, such as the Polish tendency to turn -r into -rz. And it suggests an ancestor was a glassmaker.

Your information on your father confirms what the form of your name suggests -- that in your family's case the relevant language of origin is Ukrainian. Poles hearing the Ukrainian name would tend to spell it Szklar. Only if the name was further Polonized would it become Szklarz. The fact that the final -r persists indicates it retained its Ukrainian form and was not Polonized, except for the orthographic rendering of the Cyrillic origin in the Roman alphabet by Polish phonetic values.

On the other hand, the presence of the initial sh sound, rather than the simple s of standard Ukrainian, suggests to me that it developed in western Ukraine, near the border with Poland, simply because that's the area where linguistic influences tend to mix and mingle. You might say the "pure" Ukrainian form would have plain S-, not Sz-; the fact that it is Sz- hints at a Polish influence, which is more likely the nearer you come to the Polish-Ukrainian border. It's interesting that S- has been Polonized to Sz- but the final -r has remained intact.

Still, my Ukrainian-English dictionary does include shkliar as a Ukrainian word; and it's risky trying to make too much of the form of one phoneme. All we can do is talk about probabilities -- you'd expect a name with Szkl- rather than Skl- to indicate a Polish influence on the name, and odds are that would happen in areas where Poles and Ukrainians mixed to a considerable extent. But you can never tell what circumstances may arise and affect the form of a name in ways you don't expect.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot more one can say. With some names there is some particular feature that allows you to deduce something about the family's origin. In this case, all we can tell from the name alone is that your family was Ukrainian and an ancestor was a glassmaker, and perhaps came from near the Polish-Ukrainian border. The only way to learn more is through research into the history of the specific family in question.

If you're interested, you can see data on the frequency and distribution of names beginning Szklar- in Poland as of 1990. The Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland, is now online as a searchable database at http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html). You could go to that page, input SZKLAR in the search box, and click on "Szukaj." You'll get data on every name in the database beginning Szklar-.

It's not directly relevant to you, of course, because this data covers only Poland's current borders, whereas your family came from what is now Ukraine. Unfortunately, so far as I know, no such data is available for Ukraine. The data for Poland may be of no use to you whatever; but sometimes it is worth a quick look. If you are interested in seeing that data, and would like a little help reading it, I wrote an article on the subject in an issue of Gen Dobry!, the free e-zine of PolishRoots (R), available here:

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

To sum up, I haven't really told you anything -- I just confirmed what you'd already figured out for yourself. But if you've figured that much out, I think you have an excellent chance of learning more through your research. Good luck!

==========

WIE~CL~AWEK

To: Stefanie Wieclawek <outofhunk@mac.com>

> If your schedule permits, I wonder if you may be able to provide any
> information regarding the surname Wieclawek.

Wieclawek is tough because it uses two of the letters Poles use that we don't -- and the only way to see them is to reconfigure your system to support the Central European character set, which is more trouble than it's worth most of the time. These letters are the nasal vowel written as an e with a tail under it and pronounced much like "en," and the hard l with a slash or crossbar, pronounced much like our "w." Online we use e~ and l~ to stand for those letters because the tilde shows up consistently on all systems, and at least it lets us indicate reliably that we are talking about the nasal e and the hard slash-l, not plain e and soft l.

So online we write it as Wie~cl~awek -- but of course in Polish there are no tildes, just a hook under the e and a slash through the l. This name is pronounced roughly "v'yents-WAH-veck."

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 574 Polish citizens by this name. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 48, Katowice 97, Kielce 89, and Nowy Sacz 48. 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 the country, with some concentration in southcentral Poland, but not to the extent it provides a real lead as to where a given Wie~cl~awek family might have come from.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1559, and comes from an ancient Slavic given name that is not well known in the West -- most of us have heard of it only in its Latin form, by way of the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslaus." In Polish it appeared originally as Wie~cesl~aw and later Wie~cl~aw, but later under Czech influence it was simplified to Wacl~aw. In Czech it's Vaclav (you may have heard of the playwright and former president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel). The name comes from ancient Slavic roots meaning "more" and "fame, glory." So it began as a name parents gave their child as a name of good omen or self-fulfilling prophecy, as if to say "May he live to gain more fame and glory than anyone else!" That's probably how it was originally understood -- but before long people forgot what it meant and just used it because they liked the sound of it.

The same basic Indo-European tradition lies behind all kinds of names used by Europeans, from German Friedrich ("peace" + "rule"), Greek Alexandros ("defender" + "men"), and so on. It wasn't just the ancient Slavs who did it. Many of the most popular names in European countries trace their origins to ancient two-part names that date back to pagan times.

Anyway, we may not be familiar with the name Wie~cl~aw, but it's an older form of a name very popular among modern Poles, Wacl~aw (pronounced roughly "VOTTS-woff"). The -ek part in Wie~cl~awek means "little," so that surname means literally "little Wie~cl~aw." But very often that diminutive was understood to mean "son of," so that we can probably interpret Wie~cl~awek as meaning "son of Wie~cl~aw." So basically this surname just indicates you had an ancestor named Wie~cl~aw.

==========

WOJTAS

To: Sandra Wojtas <eswojtas@i-star.com>

> I don't know if you can help explain the name of Wojtas
> to me. I know that my husband relitives all came from Poland.
> Particularly the town of Krakow comes up. I am trying to find
> some records for the town so I can direcltly write for them.
> But, at this time, I would love to know what Wojtas means.

In Polish Wojtas is pronounced roughly "VOY-toss." 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 6,555 Polish citizens named Wojtas. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 731, Bielsko-Biala 624, Krakow 482, and Nowy Sacz 453. 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, but with some concentration in the southcentral part of the country.

So if Krakow keeps showing up in your research, that's not surprising -- it's right in the area where this name is most common.

According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut's book Nazwiska Polaków [The Surnames of Poles], names beginning Wojt- can come either from the noun wójt, "local official, executive officer of a district," or from short forms of the first name Wojciech. Endings with -s added to name roots usually formed affectionate diminutives. Thus Wojtas probably started outmeaning either "[kin of] the dear little wójt" or "[kin of] dear little Wojciech."

So your ancestors may have been related to the local administrative official, or they may have been related to a man named Wojciech. There is no way to tell which is true -- only research into the family history might shed light on that.

==========

PODSEDKOWSKI

> Could you tell me something about the name Podsedkowski, meaning
> and origin.

As I'm sure you know, in Polish the E is the nasal vowel written as an E
with a hook or tail (ogonek) under it. The name Podsedkowski is pronounced
roughly "pod-sent-KOFF-skee."

As of 1990, according to the best data available (the _Slownik nazwisk
wspólczesnie 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 18 Polish citizens
by this name. They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 1, Chelm 3,
Gdansk 5, Lódz 8, and 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.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polaków_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in Polish
records as early as 1540, and refers to the name of a place with which the
family was associated. He specifically mentions the village of Podsedkowice
in central Poland, a few kilometers northeast of Biala Rawska (formerly in
Skierniewice province, but since 1999 in Lódz province). I'm sure Rymut
specifies this place because some research has definitely proved that at
least some Podsedkowskis came from that place. Quite possibly all of them
did -- but the only way to be sure of that would be to trace the history of
every Podsedkowski that's ever lived, and of course I can't do that.

But I think it is very likely most or even all Podsedkowskis originally come
from that village of Podsedkowice. The name is not very common, and I can't
find any other place in Poland with a name that would be likely to produce
this surname.

If you'd like to see a map showing where that village is, go to www.pilot.pl
and type KOPRZYWNA into the box, then click on "Pokaz miasto." This will
give you a map showing where the village of Koprzywna is, as well as a
smaller map showing where that area is in relation to the rest of Poland.
Podsedkowice doesn't appear on the map, but it's just west of Koprzywna, and
just north of Biala Rawska.

==========

DRDA, DERDA, DURDA, DYRDA

> I want to find out the origin and meaning of the family name "Drda".
> Can you help!

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it is one of many
variations of a name that appears as DYRDA in Polish records as early as
1485. He says DRDA, DERDA, DURDA, and DYRDA all come from a dialect verb _dyrdac'_, "to go swiftly, fly, shake, be keen to do something." The same
verb shows up in modern dictionaries meaning "to run like mad, to scurry."
So all these names presumably began as nicknames for ancestors who moved
very swiftly, especially with some purpose.

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 was only 1 Polish
citizen named DRDA, living somewhere in the province of Katowice in
southcentral to southwestern Poland. There were 1,291 who went by DURDA,
3,047 by DYRDA, and 2,641 by DERDA.  The largest numbers lived in the
following provinces: _. 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.

Giving the enormous variation in spelling in records, it would not be
surprising to see the same family called Drda in one record, Dyrda in
another, Derda in yet another, and so on. As you research your family, don't
overlook the other spellings, because the name may not always be spelled
DRDA. In view of the rarity of that spelling in modern Poland, I suspect you
will often see it spelled other ways, and some of those Dyrdas or Derdas or
Durdas might possibly be relatives.

==========

ARTYM

To: Uschi Artym <q9520978@mail.connect.usq.edu.au>

> I was recently on the polish roots site and would like information about the surname "Artym". I see in 1990 there were 138 Artym's in Poland - which is not many!  It was my grandfathers name and we know nothing about his past - of which he was very secretive! Any help about this name would be great.

Poles pronounce this name roughly "AR-tim." As you noted, 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 138 Polish citizens named ARTYM. They were scattered in small numbers
all over the country, with no particular concentration in any one area. Most
likely, however, that's due to war and other factors that have caused people
to move around. If we had similar data from several centuries ago, this name
would probably show up mainly in what is now eastern Poland and in Belarus
and Ukraine.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. His derivation tells why it's
not a very common name among Poles -- it is associated more with people
living in the lands east of Poland's current borders, in what are now the
independent nations of Belarus and Ukraine. The name comes from Greek, from
Arthemios, meaning "of Artemis." Names of Greek origin tend to show up more
often among followers of the Orthodox Church, as well as the Greek Catholic
Church -- and in both cases you're talking about Belarusians and Ukrainians.
There are common names of Greek origin used by Poles, of course; but because
they were followers of the Roman Catholic Church, their names tend to come
more often from Latin or languages spoken in western Europe. When you come
across a given name of Greek origin that's not very familiar to people with
roots in western Europe, it's a good bet the name comes from eastern Europe
because of an association with the Orthodox Church; and that's the case
here.

So basically what this name tells us is that you had an ancestor named
Artym, probably living in eastern Poland or western Belarus or Ukraine.
People began referring to his descendants as Artym in reference to him, and
eventually it "stuck" as a surname. More than that we can't say from the
name alone; only detailed research into the family history might tell you
more.

==========

CHRZANOWSKI

CHRZANOWSKI means "one from Chrzanów, Chrzanowo, Chrzanowice," etc. It can refer to practically any place with a name beginning Chrzan-. Those place
names all derive from the noun chrzan, "horseradish," so that the surname
literally means "one from/of the _ of horseradish," usually "one from the
place of horseradish." Only genealogical research into a specific family's
history might uncover facts that would help establish which particular place
the surname refers to; the surname itself doesn't tell us. The idea is, if
you can pinpoint the exact area in Poland where the family came from, you
could then look for a nearby place with a name beginning Chrzanow-. Chances
are decent that's the place the surname referred to originally.

This name is hard for a non-Pole to pronounce. The CH is a little more
guttural than English H, but not quite as harsh as the "ch" in German
"Bach." The RZ sounds like "zh" in "Zhivago," or the "s" in English
"measure." So using H to stand for the guttural and ZH to stand for the
sound at the start of "Zhivago," the surname is pronounced roughly
"h'zhah-NOFF-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
15,188 Polish citizens named Chrzanowski. They lived all over Poland, with
no significant concentration in any one area; a family by this name could
come from practically anywhere in Poland.

==========

KOLODZIEJ

> I was just wondering if there is a way to find out the meaning/origin of
> the name Kolodziej? I did not see an entry in the list of surnames on your
> website.

Well, originally the Website was intended to complement my book, to give
information on names I didn't have room for in the book. KOLODZIEJ was in
the book, so I guess that's one reason no one has asked about it till now.

In Polish KOLODZIEJ is written with a slash through the L, which I represent
online as L~ (because the Polish letters don't always transmit reliably in
e-mail). So where I type L~, remember that in Polish you have an L with a
slash, not an L followed by a tilde. KOL~ODZIEJ is pronounced roughly
"ko-WOE-jay." As of 1990, according to the searchable database at
http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html (which had data on about 94% of
the Polish population as of that year), there were 26,054 Polish citizens by
that name, living in large numbers all over the country. So by Polish
standards it's a fairly common name.

Polish expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions KOL~ODZIEJ in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in Polish
records as early as 1330 and comes from the noun _kol~odziej_, "a craftsman
who makes wheels and carts." In other words, it's the Polish equivalent of
our surname CARTWRIGHT, and simply indicates an ancestor's profession.

==========

PALUCHNIAK

> Hello.  I hope I am not contacting the wrong person.  I am trying to work
> on my Polish geneology and am just getting started.  My great-
> grandfather came from Poland early 1900's.  I found an envelope with the > name "Galicia" scrawled on it.  I am aware this is an area in Poland. My
> question is, the family name is Paluchniak and I am wondering if this was > a name that would have come from that area.  I had always thought he
> was from Warsaw.  It is very difficult as most of the family who had any
> information has passed away and I am deperate!  They did settle in
> Northern Michigan when they first came here.  I have tried to figure out > the origin of the name Paluchniak as well....I can only come up with "son > of ????".

In Polish PALUCHNIAK would be pronounced roughly "pah-LUKE-n'yock." The CH isn't really pronounced like our K, it's more of a guttural, like "ch" in
German "Bach." If you can pronounce it that way, that's more accurate; if
not, "pah-LUKE-n'yock" is close.

As of 1990, according to the database at
http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html, there were some 49 Polish
citizens by this name (the actual number might be slightly higher because
they were lacking data on about 6% of Polish citizens, especially in
southeastern provinces). They lived in the following provinces: Warsaw 6,
Bielsko-Biala 5, Krakow 8, Krosno 13, Rzeszow 5, Szczecin 3, and Wroclaw 9.

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 there may be a way
to get it. In the July 2000 issue of the _Polish-American Journal_, the PAJ
Answerman suggested one can find individuals or families "by contacting the
one office in Poland that has on file the addresses of all people currently
living in Poland: Centralne Biuro Adresowe, ul. Kazimierzowska 60, 02-543
Warsaw, POLAND."

My understanding is that this Central Address Bureau, as we'd call it,
contacts Polish citizens with the name in question and asks for their
permission to give out their address. If that person says no, that's the end
of it; but if he or she says yes, the Bureau will send you that information,
and you can try writing to him or her, if you wish. Obviously this is no
help if a name is scattered all over the country, or you don't know what
area to search in. But in instances where a name is highly concentrated in
one area, or a researcher knows exactly which area to look in, I pass the
info along. If this Central Address Bureau does succeed in providing you
with addresses, chances are very good those addresses belong to relatives.
It may be worth a try.

This data makes it hard to tell where a PALUCHNIAK family would have come
from. These days the name is scattered all over the country, especially the
southern part. However, it is possible at one time most Paluchniaks lived in
Galicia, which covered what is now southeastern Poland and southwestern
Ukraine. After World War II large numbers of people from that area were
forced to relocate westward; so it's entirely possible those Paluchniaks
living in Wroclaw and Szczecin provinces have only been there since about
1947. Maybe, maybe not; we just can't tell for sure. The only sure way to
find out is by tracing the history of the family in question.

Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this surname in his book
_Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles]. He says names beginning PALUCH- are usually connected with the noun _paluch_, which means "stubby finger" or "toe" in Polish, and in Ukrainian means "thumb."

It probably referred to the son or kin of a person nicknamed Paluchna or
Paluchno because he had stubby fingers, or something along those lines. It's
hard to say exactly how the name was meant, because nicknames can be very
ingenious. If you were there when they got started and were "in on the
joke," so to speak, they may seem perfectly appropriate; if you weren't,
they may seem very mysterious. Exactly why someone was nicknamed Paluchna or Paluchny is hard to say; but there must have been some kind of connection
with a stubby finger or toe or thumb, or else the name would never have
stuck. Once that name existed, it was only a matter of time before people
began referring to his sons or kin as Paluchniak.

In practical terms, I'm afraid this surname, like most others, doesn't give
a genealogist much to work with. From the information available we can't
tell for sure where a Paluchniak family came from; the data certainly
suggests that Galicia is a plausible answer, but that still covers way too
much ground to be very helpful. And the name itself has no distinctive
feature that points toward any particular area.

One thing you might try is reading the info at www.halgal.com. This is one
of the best sites on the Web for research in Galicia, and you may find
something there that gives you a lead. Otherwise, all I can tell you is you
need to keep digging, looking in any kind of record that might preserve
information that would you in the right direction: census records, military
record, parish records, naturalization papers, anything and everything that
just might mention exactly where the family came from. That info would be
far more helpful than anything the surname can tell you.