Zwolinski/Zvolinski name

Hallo,
My surname is "Zvolinski". As far as i know, Zvolin is ZWOLEN (some city in poland or something) in yiddish. i just wanted to know what is the meaning of ZWOLEN in polish, and what is the exact translation of this surname, what can you say about it. Thank you.

There's no such word as "Zwolen" in Polish. Your surname is probably: Zwolinski (not "Zvolinski"). In very free and lousy translation you could divide the word "zwolinski" to: "z woli" - meaning "with the will of".

Thanks for answering. Well, are you sure there isn't such word as "Zwoleń"? get inside this link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvolin

I think that my grandfather came from this town, so his surname is "Zvolin-ski" (we are jews, by the way. so Zvolin is in yiddish).

There is such a word (Zwolen) -- it's the name of a city. But this word does not mean anything in Polish - it's like the word "Chicago" - what does it mean? :)

Ok, thanks anyway. :-)
I live in Israel, and I speak Hebrew, English and German (well, not so much, but i know the basics). I don't know polish, so I have one final question. What does the "ski" means? in this case, does it mean "came from Zwolen" or something like that?

There's no such word as "ski" (that would stand alone). A lot of Polish surnames end with "-ski" -- I guess it can only mean that a person with such a surname is a typical Polish person (and his/her ancestors were Polish too).. :).

Ohh ok.. yeah i know that the "ski" isn't a word (many families around here have this ending), but i still wanted to know if there is any meaning to this ending (except of the fact that most of those families came from Poland, and other eastern-european countries). Thanks!!

Was named by the American Indians I don`t know which tribe.
I believe it means Wild Onion.

"Chicago" was just an example -- I don't know a regular individual would know what that means :).

I only know it because I live there and remember it from grammer school.
Most places in the U.S. come from Indian names.

One final question. How do you say "ZWOLEN" in english? is it like "Zvolen" or like "Zvolin"?

in English it would be as you see it :) We don't pronounce the w as a v...as you may know being from the US

but if you were to say it in Poland ....Zvolen

Thanks.

As far as i know "ski" is whats called a patronym.- its like "son of". the female equivalent is "ska" You get them a lot in eastern european names.

like in russian: anna kournik(ova) = daughter of

milose"vic"= son of

i think i'm right in saying the surname should change depending on the sex- my grans maiden name "krupinska" her father "krupinski"

in scandinavian or germanic names-

sorensen= "soren's son"

You get them in british names too, but they are more obvious- O'brien = son 'of brien'

Stevenson= (yes..you guessed it... steven's son)

:)

I just found this discussion. So, I don't know if anyone is still monitoring it. My family name is Zwolinski. My understanding is Zwola is an area of Poland near a river. My ancestors, as best as I can determine were from Mroczno & Lubawa. Not far from the famous Battle of Grunwald. They were not Jewish, however. I suppose it is a fairly common name. I have seen the name everywhere from Gdansk to Warsaw.