-ewski, -owski, -ien~ski,
-in~ski, and -yn~skis
The -ski is an adjectival suffix, which can be added directly to a stem -- as piekarski means "of the baker
(piekarz)" -- or can be compounded with other suffixes. Two common suffixes that can precede -ski are: 1)
-ew- or -ow- (basically the same thing, dependent on whether the stem ends in a consonant classified as hard or soft); and 2) -in- or
-ien- or -yn. The -yn is added to stems ending in hard consonants, the other two added to "soft" stems; for all intents and purposes,
-ien- can be regarded as a variant of -in-, often indicating some dialect difference in pronunciation. Both prefixes have a possessive meaning, so that
-owski/-ewski and -i[e]nski/-ynski mean "of the _'s." In the suffix combinations
-inski and -ynski the N is softened and spelled with an accent, which I render on-line as N~
(-in~ski and -yn~ski). We also see these suffixes added to names without -ski, so that Jan means "John" and Janów means "of John," and Russian Stalin means "[man] of steel"
(stal'). We see places called Janów, which just means "[place] of John." Suffixes can also be added to those suffixes, so that we also see
Janowo, also meaning "[place] of John," and Lipiny, "[place] of the lindens" (from
lipa, "linden").
I believe Slavic linguists have written articles on when and why -ew-/-ow- is added in some cases, and
-in-/-yn- in others, but that gets into complicated issues that are best left only to those who want to study Slavic linguistics in a serious way. The bottom line is that once either set of suffixes
-ow/-ew and -in/-yn has been added to a stem to form a place name X, the suffix -ski can be further added to them to mean, in effect, "one from X."
Thus kowal is "smith," Kowalew or Kowalewo is "[place] of the smith," and Kowalewski is "one from the place of the smith." Or lipa is "linden," Lipiny is "place of the lindens," and Lipin~ski is "one from the place of the lindens." Incidentally, we see the
-in/-yn suffix added sometimes without the preceding vowel, yielding names such as
Lipno, also meaning "place of the lindens"; this place name, too, can yield the surname
Lipin~ski. These processes are very common in Polish surname formation.
These suffix complexes -ewski/-owski and -in~ski/-yn~ski can also be added directly to nouns sometimes to simply indicate a connection. Thus
L~omz*a (slash through the L, dot over the Z) is the name of a major town in Poland, and
l~omz*yn~ski is an adjectival form meaning "of L~omz*a." So surnames ending in these suffixes don't always have to refer to place names. More often than not they do, but they don't have to.
You might notice that there's considerable overlap in meaning between, say, Janów [kin or place of John] and Janowski [kin of John or one from John's place]. In fact, we sometimes see both names used, and in older records a family may appear with the forms used interchangeably. In more modern times the -ski forms have tended to predominate; but there are Poles named
Janów. As with any aspect of onomastics, it doesn't pay to make flat generalizations -- almost anything you say that is correct most of the time can have glaring exceptions. -ski
* I'm A -SKI, I Must Be Noble! *
Again and again I hear "Someone told me names ending in -ski are
noble. Is that true?" I've responded so often I'm sick of the whole
subject. Still, it's a legitimate question, so let's start with it.
If you're talking about names found in records from, say, the 14th
century, then yes, names ending in -ski were borne by nobles. So were
names ending in -owicz, or -ik, or whatever suffix you care to mention.
Back then, all surnames were noble! In other words, only nobles used
surnames.
It wasn't until much later that non-nobles began using surnames regularly
-- generally not until the 16th or 17th centuries. It's hard to be
absolutely certain of the dates because there are very few records before
the 1600s that mentioned non-nobles at all; so we have don't have much
evidence as to when the practice of bearing unchanging, hereditary names
spread to the middle class and the peasants. But by and large, most
scholars agree that peasants seldom used surnames before the 1600s; there
are exceptions to every rule, but this one is pretty reliable.
So at one time -ski indicated nobility. But that ceased to be true, oh, a
good 300-400 years ago. When the use of surnames of any sort stopped being
exclusive to nobles, so did the forms of the names themselves.
What does -ski mean? In Polish it's an adjectival suffix, meaning simply
"of, from, connected with, pertaining to." The form X-ski is an
all-purpose way of saying "somehow associated with X." Thus
Warszawa means "Warsaw," and Warszawski means "of
Warsaw." The noun _piekarz_ means "baker," and the
adjective _piekarski_ means "of the baker, the baker's."
In surnames, X-ski usually began as a short way of indicating some close
connection with X. Thus Piekarski would generally mean either "kin of
the baker," or "one from the place of the baker." There are
subsets of the -ski names that are especially likely to refer to place of
origin -- we'll look a them in a minute -- but clearly a name such as
Warszawski would mean "one from Warsaw," or in a broader sense,
"one connected with Warsaw in some way clear enough that calling this
guy Warszawski makes sense." Similarly Bydgoski, literally "of
Bydgoszcz," would mean "one from Bydgoszcz, one connected with
Bydgoszcz."
Please notice: when -ski is added to a noun, a letter or two at the end of
the noun may disappear: Piekarz -> Piekarski, Warszawa -> Warszawski.
Sometimes the change is even greater, as in Bydgoszcz -> Bydgoski,
Zamos~c~ -> Zamojski. Poles tended to add -ski to what they regarded as
the base form of the noun in question, and clear away final suffixes or
consonant combinations that weren't essential parts of the name.
The practical consequence of this is that a lot of -ski names referring to
places are ambiguous; they may refer to a number of different places with
names derived from the same base form. Thus you can't be positive
Warszawski must refer to the capital of Poland. There may be another
place, or two, or five, with names beginning Warszaw-; the surname, by
itself, gives no clue which one it's referring to in a given instance.
There's a Warszawa in former Zamosc province; there's a Warszawice in
Siedlce province; there's a Warszawiaki in former Lublin province; and a
Warszawskie Przedmies~cie in Elbla~g province. It is POSSIBLE the surname
Warszawski could refer to any of them.
Obviously most of the time Warszawski would refer to the nation's capital.
My point is that you can't take that for granted! The moment you assume
that, it will surely turn out YOUR Warszawski was the one in 100 who came
from Warszawa in Zamos~c~ province. That's why even surnames that refer to
place names MUST be interpreted in light of a specific family's history --
it's the only way to make sure you're focusing on the right place.
Of course, a lot of -ski names don't refer to places at all. Piekarski
might refer to a place named Piekary or something similar; but most of the
time it probably started out meaning "the baker's kin." Kowalski
would usually mean "the smith's kin" (from _kowal_,
"smith"). Szczepan~ski would usally mean "kin of Szczepan
(Stephen)." Nosalski can mean simply "kin of the big-nose"
(_nosal_). This suffix can be added to all kinds of roots, whether they
refer to a ancestor's place of residence or origin, his occupation, his
first name, his most obvious physical feature, and so on.
-SKI vs. -SKA
As basic as this is, I still get asked a lot: why does my
great-grandmother's name end in -ska? The answer is simple: Polish
adjectives have different forms for the genders. Surnames ending in -ski
are regarded as adjectives, so they, too, reflect gender with different
endings. Thus Janowski is the nominative form for a male; Janowska is the
same form for a female. The endings differ in the other cases, too:
"of Janowski" is Janowskiego if referring to a male, Janowskiej
if referring to a female. But the nominative forms are the ones we
encounter the most, and you can save yourself some wear and tear if you
just realize that X-ska normally means "Miss X-ski" or
"Mrs. X-ski."
Now nothing's ever too simple, and there is one factor that can throw a
wrench into the works: names derived from nouns than end with -ska, e. g.,
_deska_, "board," _maska_, "mask," _troska_,
"care, worry." These have to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
But the rule of thumb is as stated above. When you see -ska, replace the
-a with -i and you'll usually have what we regard as the standard form of
the name.
-CKI and -ZKI
What about names ending in -cki/-cka and -zki/-zka? Essentially, these are
just variants of -ski/-ska. Certain words end with consonants that, when
combined with the basic ending -ski, produced a pronunciation change. Thus
Zawadzki comes from _zawada_, "obstruction, fortress" + -ski.
The final -a in _zawada_ drops off, giving Zawadski. But it's hard to say
-d- followed by an -s- (notice, in "gods" or "wads" or
"lads" we always pronounce that final -s as a -z). Zawadzki
seemed the more accurate way to spell this name.
But, just to complicate things, the combination -dz- in that instance is
actually pronounced like -ts-, which Poles write with the letter -c-. So
Zawacki is another way of spelling that same name. Either way, Zawadzki or
Zawacki, it's pronounced roughly "zah-VAHT-skee," and just means
"of the obstruction or fortress," or "from the place called
Zawada or Zawady because at one time there was an obstruction or fortress
there."
My advice is, treat -cki and -zki as variations of -ski. You don't really
need to know why they're spelled differently. It's enough to recognize the
difference, note the spelling variation, and move on.
-SKI vs. -SKY
Lord, am I sick of this one! People are always asking things like "If
it's spelled -sky, isn't that a Jewish name?" or "Can I conclude
my Jablonsky was Czech instead of Polish?"
Historically the spellings of Eastern European surnames have varied so
much -- even back home in Europe, let alone in North America -- that you
can't lay out a hard and fast rule for this -ski/-sky business. The rule
of thumb, however, is that -ski usually is associated with Poles; -sky may
be associated with Czechs, Ukrainians, Russians, etc. There are jillions
of exceptions, but if you want a basic rule to go by, that's it.
That's because Polish spelling rules say -k- can never be followed by -y,
only by -i. Well, Poles arrived in this country writing their names in the
same alphabet we use. Some of the special Polish letters caused problems,
but the -ski ending was easy enough to copy and use. So as a rule Poles
tended to spell their names -ski even after they came to America.
Religion was not really a factor. Jews tended to use whatever spelling was
regarded as correct where they lived. As I say, in Polish -sky is
incorrect, -ski is correct, so Jews living among Poles usually spelled it
-ski. Jews living among Czechs spelled it -sky because that is correct in
Czech. If they lived in what is now Belarus or Russia or Ukraine -- as
millions did -- their names were written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and
could be rendered in our alphabet as -ski, -sky, -skiy, -skyi, -skyj, -skij,
and so on. Most often it ended up as -sky, so that spelling seems to
predominate among Jewish immigrants. But there were and are plenty of Jews
in America who spell their names -ski.
There seems to be a tendency among German- and English-speakers to spell
this Slavic suffix as -sky, to the point that even Polish immigrants quit
fighting it and accepted that spelling. I'm not sure what accounts for
that tendency, but I have a theory: Czech influence. In Czech -sky
(actually with an accent over the y) is the correct spelling. Over the
centuries Germans have dealt a lot with Czechs, and that experience may
have convinced them -sky is the right way to spell this suffix. And when
Poles immigrated to the U. S., they often found sizable Czech communities
already flourishing here; in many cities Poles went to Czech churches and
social events, until they were numerous enough to establish their own.
Since the Czechs had come first, and the Poles often mixed with them, it's
understandable that Americans became familiar with the Czech spelling
first, and regarded it as standard. That may explain why, in Europe and
especially in America, the -sky often shows up in instances where it was
not "correct."
-OWICZ or -EWICZ
This suffix simply means "son of." Here, too, the
difference between -owicz and -ewicz is of no great importance to
non-linguists; some names tend to show up with one or the other, and
some show up with both. But the basis meaning of X-owicz or X-ewicz
is "son of X."
What happened here is that the possessive ending -ow/-ew had the
suffix -icz tacked onto it. That suffix -icz or -ycz is how Poles
once said "son of," so that "son of Jan" was
Janicz or Janycz; "son of Kuba" was Kubicz or Kubycz. But
as time went on the Poles were influenced by the tendency of other
Slavs to use -owicz or -ewicz instead of plain -icz.
By the way, -owicz is just the Polish way of spelling the suffix we
see in many other Slavic names as -ovich or -ovic^ (using ^ to
indicate the so-called hac^ek in Czech -- it looks like a little v
sitting on top of the letter in question). The spelling varies from
language to language, but it almost always means "son of."
-AK-/-EK/-IK/-KA/-KO/-UK/-YK
Suffixes with a -k- generally began as diminutives. In other words,
Jan is the Polish form of "John," and Janek or Janko is
much like "Johnny." English, however, typically has only a
couple of diminutive suffixes, -y or -ie. Polish (and the other
Slavic languages) have tons of them. Most have a -k- in there
somewhere, or the-k- has been modified by the addition of further
suffixes (e. g., -czak, -czyk). As a rule, in surnames a suffix with
-k- means something like "little" or "son of."
Thus Jan is "John," Janek or Janko is "little John,
Johnny," Jankowicz is "son of little John," Jankowo
is "[the place] of little John" (or "of John's
son"), and Jankowski is "from the place of little John or
John's son." You see how different suffixes can combine to add
layers of meaning to the basic name?
The original usage of these suffixes was to indicate a diminutive
form. But they also came to be used in other ways, usually meaning
"associated with, related to, exhibiting the quality of."
Nowak comes from _nowy_, "new" + -ak, to mean "new
guy in town," and Stasik means "one associated with Stas~"
= "kin of Stas~."
Also, these suffixes were often added to nouns to serve as a term
for a person or object perceived as related to whatever the base
root meant. Thus Bartek started as a nickname from Bartl~omiej
(Bartholomew), and meant "little Bart, son of Bart." But
once Bartek existed as a name, it could come to be used more loosely
as the noun _bartek_, which means "yokel, peasant, hick from
the sticks." This happened because folks perceived Bartek as a
name popular primarily among people in rural areas, so it came to be
used as a common noun for such a person. We have done similar things
in English; you might refer to a redneck in general as a "Billy
Bob" or any other name perceived as common among rural folk.
Similarly, _sowa_ means "owl," and _so~wka_, literally
"little owl," can be a term for a specific kind of owl,
Athene noctuae. But it's also used as a term for the Noctuidae
family of moths. Apparently something about those moths reminded
people of little owls, and the term stuck. Thus you have to be
careful when you interpret surnames with these diminutive suffixes:
the "little X" may be turn out to be a term for something
not readily apparent. If you trace the development of the name back
far enough, you can usually see what the semantic connection was.
But it's often pretty obscure until you dig deep.
-IAK
Essentially, the suffix -iak is the same thing
as -ak; both are diminutive suffixes, but -iak
differs only in that it involves softening or
palatalization of the root's final consonant. Thus in
some names we see -ak added directly to a root
with no palatalization, e. g., Nowak, Pawlak; and in
others we see the palatalization, e. g., Dorota + -iak = Dorociak, Jakub +
-iak = Jakubiak, Szymon + -iak = Szymoniak.
The basic meaning of -ak/-iak is diminutive,
but especially when applied to first names, it tends to
have a patronymic significance. Thus "Jakubiak"
means "little Jakub," but much the same way as
if someone saw me walk by and said "There's
Fred" (Fred's my middle name and it's the one I go
by, I hope this isn't too confusing!) and then a moment
later my son toddled along and he said "There goes
little Fred," i. e., "Fred's son." So in
most cases where -ak/-iak is appended to the root
of a first name we can translate it as "son
of." However, it's not used exclusively in that way,
for instance there is a noun "Krakowiak" which
means "one from Krakow." Polish suffixes rarely
have one and only one meaning (unfortunately; life would
be much easier if they did!).
I'm not sure why sometimes the suffix is added with
palatalization and why it's not. No doubt Polish
linguists have addressed this very question, and
somewhere in my sources there is probably a learned
article on this very subject. But I can't find it at the
moment -- and besides, to make sense of it one would
probably need a Ph.D. in Slavic historical linguistics. I
think it suffices for our purposes to say that the suffix
can be added either way, without palatalization (Pawel + -ak = Pawlak) or with it; and if it's added with
palatalization, that is indicated either by interposing
an -i- (Jakub + -i- + ak) or by modifying the root's
final consonant (Dorota + -ak to Doroti- + -ak to Doroci-
+ -ak = Dorociak). There are ways to tell which final
root consonants add -i- and which change the
letter, but again, this is probably more information than
you want!
-ANKA, -INA/-YNA,
-OWA/-EWA, -O~WNA/-EWNA
Finally, these suffixes differ from the others I've mentioned in
that they're not intrinsic parts of the surnames. Jankowski is a
different name from Jankowicz; Jankowiczowa is not a different
surname from Jankowicz, but merely a special form of it. These
suffixes all mark feminine versions of surnames that take the form
of nouns, not of adjectives ending in -ski or -cki or -zki. To
arrive at the standard form of the name you have to remove the
suffix (and sometimes add an ending): Jankowiczowa = Mrs. Jankowicz,
Kos~ciuszkowa = Mrs. Kos~ciuszko.
In standard Polish -owa or -ewa indicates a married woman, and -o~wna/-ewna
an unmarried one. As I said, Jankowiczowa is Mrs. Jankowicz, but
Jankowiczo~wna is Miss Jankowicz; Kowalewa = Mrs. Kowal, Kowalewna =
Miss Kowal. In records we often see -o~wna/-ewna forms as maiden
names.
The suffixes -ina/-yna are added to noun-derived names ending in -a,
and usually indicate a married woman; the corresponding form for
unmarried women was -anka or -ianka (sometimes -onka or -ionka). So
Mrs. Zare~ba is "pani Zare~bina," and Miss Zare~ba is
"panna Zare~bianka."
I must add, however, that in regional dialects you sometimes see -anka
or -onka added to adjectival surnames, and even used for any female,
so that a Mrs. Kowalski might appear as "Kowalszczanka."
That is not correct in mainstream Polish; but you may run into in
records from some regions, especially northeastern and southeastern
Poland. |
