Unknown Origins Dzikowicz

I have a small problem. My paternal grandfather was adopted, or rather fostered, and never met his real parents. However we do know his surname was "Dzikowicz" which I believe means "son of the boar" in Polish, and may appear in other slavic languages as well. We believe it is likely Polish, however, my father believes it to be Ukrainian. He claims to have met a Ukrainian with the same surname( I can not remember if he told me it had a different spelling or not), and on top of that, we LOOK very Ukrainian. You know the look. Long face, high cheek bones, pointed chin but thin jaw, greenish-blue-grey eyes, dark hair, tall and naturally thin, but very strong.

My question is if anyone knows if this surname is certainly only Polish, or may it have some sort of Ukrainian/Rusyn/Ruthenian/Cossack origin?

With so little to go on it is impossible to say. There are places in Poland called Dzików and Dzikowo as well as in Russia.

The name could have originated as a patronymic nick to mean the son of someone nicknamed Dzik (the boar). Whether he was called that becuase he looked (or smelt) like one (shaggy hair, tusky teeth, etc.), or because he hailed from Dzików or Dzikowo is buried in time...

that spelling is polish

I wasn’t sure if the questioner was familiar with Cyrillic, but I had in mind the Russian equivalents: Диковa Диков Диковo.

Last time I checked, Ukrainians looked the same as Poles, so saying that you can't be Polish because you look "Ukrainian" sounds rather ridiculous. And of course there are Ukrainians with Polish surnames and Poles with Ukrainian surnames - we used to be one country for several centuries and obviously we intermarried a lot.

Things like surname or looks are not enough to tell if your ancestry is Polish or Ukrainian, you need birth certificates of your ancestors for that.

no, they don't.

Ukrainian man: youtube.com/watch?v=_v-49q1rDrs
Polish man:

Not all Polish men look like that...!

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  Polishgimp.jpg
  

I don't know if you're still interested in this topic...
But my surname is Dzikowicz and as far as I know from my father it's Ukrainian surname adapted to Polish spelling.
Most of people with this surname comes from Lviv and because of resettlement after WW2 many families were separated - some of them live in Ukraine and others in Western Poland.

(sorry for my english ;d)

The spelling is definitely Polish and only Polish. But if someone with that name moved to Ukraine would probably get called Dykowycz and in Slovenia Diković. Many surnames are shared by most or all Slavonic nations but spelt a bit differently.