My last name is skicewicz, and as far as I know when my great-grandfather emigrated from Poland to the United States he did not change the spelling, though some people say that it should be spelled skciewicz, would this be correct?
Skicewicz - Original spelling of last name
skicewicz
Skrzycewicz maybe
ShortHairThug - | 1101
27 Nov 2011 / #3
My last name is skicewicz
If the root of your surname is "Skic" it probably is in its correct and unchanged form. In that group you'll find surnames like (Skic, Skica, Skicaj, Skicak, Skiciak, Skiciński, Skiciuk, Skicki, Skiczak, Skiczek, Skiczewski, Skiczko, Skiczuk, Skiczyński), however no Skicewicz. So if you were looking through some database of surnames and can't find yours, having doubts now it is still possible it remained in its unchanged form however rare it may be and don't let the fact that it doesn't figure on some database of surnames steer you in the wrong direction. The lack of its presents on some list does not necessarily mean that it never existed in that form at some time in the past. Given that the root "Skic" means (someone active, of vigorous or hyper nature) and the suffix "ewicz" (son of) the X-ewicz is "son of X" in English. It all points to its legit unchanged form. There's no "Skciewicz" either but that sounds unnatural to me so I would exclude this possibility. Unless you really find yourself at a dead end in your research I would stick to what you have in front of you and what you know before contemplating any possibility of it ever being changed.
SKICEWICZ: The -wicz ending tells us this originated as a patronymic nickname to indicate the son of someone called Skic, Skica, SKicza, Skiczaj or similar because of his liveliness, being constantly on the go, moving from palce to place, etc. It comes from the dialectal verb skikać (to jump, leap, hop).
Milamilenka
26 Dec 2019 / #5
Could the name SKICZUK have been formed by "Skic" and the patronym -zuk ? Polish people told me it's a Polish name, but the only thing I know my grandparents were from a German enclave in Romania/Bukovina.
Skiczuk - This is very unlikely to be a Polish surname, but it is a Slavic surname. Search on the web for origins of the name, then how often the name appears in different regions of Poland. Go further afield to surrounding countries.