Genealogy / Jasiak, Jozwiak from Byczyn/Bychyn/Byczyna [9]

JASIAK: patronymic nick from Jaś (Johnny).

JÓ-WIAK: patronymic nick from Józwa, peasant version of first name Józef.

NOTE: Josef is not a Polish spelling.

Genealogy / Looking for Beschorner/Berszoner and Hoppe Relatives [5]

BESCHORNER: Probably from German/Yiddish verb bescheren (to shear, shave); possibly originated as a nick to indicate someone who had shaved of his facial hair.

Genealogy / I am interested in tracing any of my Polish-Lithuanian relatives Sadowski [23]

SADOWSKI: nickname-tutrned-surname of toponymic origin traceable to any of multiple localities in Poland and throughout the former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth such as Sady, Sadowa, Sadów or Sadowo. Root-word is sad (orchard), so those places are translatable as Orchards, Orchardville, Orchardton, etc.

Genealogy / Zofia Lakomic, Tadeusz Ryba. Looking for my mothers relatives [5]

£AKOMIC/£AKOMIEC: from adj. łakomy (greedy, hungry; e.g. łakomy na słodycze = very fond of sweets)

RYBA: Polish word for fish; a possible nick for a fisherman, fishmonger or someone who resembled a fish; also topo tag from localities such as Rybno. Rybaki, Rybowo, etc.

Genealogy / Whytick/Wityk (Witczyk?) - Looking for my past; also Bratasz/Dawidowicz [14]

WITYK: Probably originated as a hypocoristic (pet) form of the first name Witold, the Polonised version of the Lithuanian name Vitautas.

BRATASZ: Like Bratuś; Bratosz, Bratyś, most likely originated as a hypocoristc form of the old Polish first name Bratumil.

DAWIDOWICZ: patronymic nickname meaning Davidson/Davison.

Genealogy / Felix Rawisinski from Lodz, Poland [6]

There are currently no Rawisińskis in Poland. Perhaps the name got misspelt.
There is a surname Rawiś, so Rawisiński (if it existed) could have meant the son of Rawiś.
Another is Rawiński - a toponymic tag for an inhabitant of the village of Rawa.

Genealogy / Searching for descendants of Paulina Dobruszkiewicz and Jan Brzezicki [3]

DOBRUSZKIEWICZ: One of numerous surnames derived from the adjective dobry (good, goodly, kind). When a given locality's most kind-hearted soul nicknamed Dobruszek fathered a son, fellow-villagers could have dubbed the offspring Dobruszkiewicz (patronymic nick for "Dobruszek's son"). Toponymic origin is also possible.

BRZEZICKI: toponymic tag identifying a native of Brzezica or Brzezice (Birchville).

ADESZKO: Most likely a patronymic nickname meaning "son of Adam"; compare English Adamson.

For more information please contact me.

Language / First post, not sure how to translate "to" in a sentence, or which case to use following it. [12]

Dziękuję za zaproszenie is more than sufficient. Whoever you are thanking knows what he is being thanked for. But if you insist on adding "to your place" you could say: Dziękuję za zaproszenie mnie do siebie.

To intensify your gratitude you could add a bardzo: Bardzo dziękuję za zaproszenie mnie do siebie.
It would be even more literal if you said: Bardzo dziękuję za zaproszenie mnie do swojego domu.
The choice is yours.

Language / How to say "It Was Staged" in Polish [9]

maybe wyreżyserowane if you wnat to imply that it has not straight news coverage or documentary footage but a scene acted out on orders from a stage director.

Genealogy / Stanislaw (Jan) Czternastek & Bronislaw Wydrowski - searching info on Polish War Pilots [45]

CZTERNASTEK: the 14th; probably a nick for the 14th child born to a given family

Food / Nothing better than skwarki! [19]

Dice salted fat back and fry up into gold-brown nuggets. The skwarki and pan driuppings are a typical Polish (peasant) garnish for potatoes, groats, noodles, dumpligns and other plain, lean foods.

Skwarki can also be made with bacon or fatty ham.

Correcting typo: dumplings

Genealogy / Wlaz and Petraszczuk, Piotrowski [10]

Your case may also be one that falls in the translingual confusion category. In a partitioned country like Poland names were written in Polish, Russian, sometimes Ukrainian and German. Cyrillic was differently tranliteratedinto Polish and German, and still differently into English and at times mistrasnliaterated into any of those. Names also got "ellisised" (Anglo-mangled by US immigration at Ellis Island), so it's no wonder there were sometimes multiple spellings. However Pertaszczuk (which is the Polish spelling of a Ukrainian-sounding surname) and Petrowski are rather unusual, separated by a deep chasm. Maybe the name's bearer felt that Petraszczuk was a peasant name, whilst those ending in -ski had a classier ring to them.

Language / Polish past tense, confusion - łem, łeś, łam, łaś, ła etc. / przeczytasz [11]


There are perfective and imperfective aspects of MOST, but not all verbs. Whether a verb is perfective or imperfectvie is already known (at least to a native speaker) in the infinitive. There is no perfective form of czytać, it is always imperfective. It is the prefix that makes an imperfective verb perfective.

However, a prefix does not always indicate the perfective aspect. Eg zabić (perfective), zabijać (imperfective) to kill. Bić alone means to hit or strike, adding the za- changes its meaning to kill.

Sorry for all this grammatcial mumbo-jumbo, but it's no exaggeration that Polish is a complicated and difficult tongue for non-natives.

Language / Polish past tense, confusion - łem, łeś, łam, łaś, ła etc. / przeczytasz [11]

przeczytać = read through, read and finish, read to the end from cover to cover.
czytać = to read in general, be reading.

Co czytasz? - What are you reading?

Czy przeczytasz "Wojnę i pokój" do piątku? - Will you read (and finish) "War and peace" by Friday.

Polish verbs use prefixes where English would use adverbs or prepositions.

The prefixes already exist in the inifinitive (base form of the very). Example:
poczytać - to read a little, read a bit, off and on.
Jutro poczytam sobie Pismo Święte = Tomrorow I will read the Bible a bit. (not from cover to cover).

doczytać= read up to a certain page; Na jutro musimy doczytać do strony 190. - For tomorrow (eg a school assignment) we are supposed to read up to page 190.

wyczytać = to read off (a list of names, etc.); Dyrektor wyczytał nazwiska wyróżnionych - The director read off the honourable mentioins

odczytać = to be able to deciphre; Nie mogę odczytać jego bazgrołów.- I can't make out his scribbling.

naczytać się = to read one's fill; Dziś się już naczytałem - I've read as much as I can take today.

oczytać się: to acquire knowledge by reading; the adj. oczytany = well-read (person)

Note this interesting verb: porykiwać (derived from ryczeć - to low, roar, bellow).
Lew pożerał antylopę i porykiwał z zadowolenia. - The lion devoured the antelope and gave off a roar of satisfaction every now and then.

Genealogy / Oczkowicz - Anyone here from Zagorzany or the area? / Kandefer [8]

KANDEFER: Some 670 people in Poland share this surname, around 460 of them living in and around the city of Krosno in Poland's extreme SE corner bordering Slovakia and Ukraine.

Genealogy / Duplaga, Data surnames [67]

Do you find plausible the assumption or suggestion that the basic root of this surname is the word dziupla (tree hollow), in its harder (non-palatalised) Ukrainian pronunciation dupla?

As far as going back further in your quest, I can only suggest some professional genealogists. Have you consulted any so far?
Let me know.

Genealogy / Duplaga, Data surnames [67]

I originally thought the Polish name Duplaga might have been the Polonised form of some French surname like Duplage, De La plage, Deplage. The retreating Napoleonic troops occasionally had their wounds nursed in Poland and sometimes settled there. However, now I am inclined to believe that the name was originally Polish and traveled to France with émigŕes, refugees, DPs, etc. After all, the -ga ending usually with a pejorative connotation does appear in Polish (e.g. łomaga, ciemięga, etc.) and that could have been the case with Duplaga as well. The only locality incorporating "Duplaga" is Duplagan in the Philippines -- not a very likely source of a Polish surname.

As far as further pursuing this thread on French soil perhaps the following link may be helpful:
archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/chan/chan/onomastique.html
That is the onomastics centre of the French National Archives. Dunno how responsive they'll be but good luck anyway!

Genealogy / Duplaga, Data surnames [67]

I happened to stumble across the Duplaga surname in France. Some Polish Duplagas were wondering if it maybe was of French origin and had originally been Deplage or De La Plage, but it turns out that it is found in France in precisely that form: Duplaga.

En France : 71 personnes portent le nom de famille Duplaga selon nos estimations
Le Duplaga est le 122 804ème nom le plus porté en France.

Tout savoir sur le nom de famille Duplaga :
Répartition par département - Données par département - Classement par département
RÉPARTITION PAR DÉPARTEMENT
Cette carte affiche la répartition par département du Duplaga en France. Par exemple, on voit ci-dessous que plus de 5 % des français ayant Duplaga pour nom de famille vivent dans le 44 (Loire-Atlantique)­.

Genealogy / Origins of Polish surnames that end in "o". Are they from ukrainian origins [15]

Poznań University onomastician Dr Ewa Szczodruch believes Bojdo comws from the Old Polish verb bojeć się (to fear) or the word bój (combat, struggle). It could also have had toponmyic roots - possibly traceable to such places as Bojany, Bojanów or Bojewo. in Germany there is a localtiy called Boyda. The -o ending seems a clear indicator or "Ruthenianness".

Genealogy / Origins of Polish surnames that end in "o". Are they from ukrainian origins [15]

Most of the Poles left stranded behnd Stalin's redrawn border after he annexed the eastern half of Poland in collusion with Herr Hitler were repatriated after the war to the so-called reclaimed territorries in the north and west.

Genealogy / Origins of Polish surnames that end in "o". Are they from ukrainian origins [15]

Not only Ukrainian but Ruthenian in general including Belorusian. Naturally these were most widepread in the eastenr reaches of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth -- now indepdnent Belarus and Ukraine. Poland's national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko is a prime ecxample. The surname evovled from a pet form of the first name Konstanty -- Kostek, in the east Kostko.

But hundreds of thousands of Poles in today's Poland have names ending in -ko who do not regard themselves as Ruthenian after centuries of polonisation.

Genealogy / Kajzer, Sztefko, Balcerzak, Ldziarstek, Kowalczyk: Kozy, Warszawa (Warsaw) relatives [3]

Maybe it was:
£ODZIAREK: possibly a patronymic from łodziarz (boatman, boat-builder), hence the boatman's son.
Without the slash through the L it woudl be Lodziarerk, son of the lodziarz (iceman), except no-one in Poland uses it at present.

KAJZER: this is the Polish respelling of the German word Kaiser (emperor). As a surname it probably originated as a toponymic tag to identify someone from the tiny hamlet of Kajzerówka in the Mazowsze region's county (powiat) Kozienice.

Genealogy / Banas and Planeta Family from Radwan or Szczucin [4]

BANAŚ: one of many surnames derived from Banadyk, the dialectal (peasant) form of Benedykt; others inlcude Banaszek, Banach, Bieniek, etc.

PLANETA: the Polish word for planet which colloquially once applied to all celestial bodies.

Genealogy / Edward Mikolajec, Help with locating Polish Family [3]

MIKO£AJEC: one of nuemrous names derived from Mikołaj (Nicholas). This could have been a patronymic tag (son of Mikołaj), although the most common and unquestioned patronymics would be things like Mikołajczyk, Mikołajewicz and similar.

WA£ACH: 1) Wallachian - member of a Romanian sheep-herding ethnic subgroup fom the other side of the Carpathbians; ; 2) gelding (castrated stallion).

Genealogy / Duchnowski family in Grajewo, Poland [3]

DUCHNOWSKI: toponymic nick from Duchnów, Duchny or Duchnice.

Genealogy / Koch, Kostbar, Kormann surnames from Paproc - Can someone tell me where this is Poprotz, Poland? [13]

There are two neighbouring villages in NE Poland's Podlasie region called Paproć Duża and Paproć Mała.

Genealogy / Tony Racilla - born in Slobdka Poland around 1871, married to Julia Zawadska, lived in Johnston City IL. [3]

RACI££A: It looks like his could be a Polish name, possibly a Polonised version of an orignally Lithuanian one; there are surnames such as Raciłowski and Racilewicz which could have been patronymic tags meaning "son of Raciłło". There is a locality in Romania (across the mountains from Poland) called Racila which could have been a toponymic source of this surname.

ZAWADSKI: only a handful of people in Poland spell their name this way, the normal spelling is Zawadzki. It orignated as toponymic tag inidcaitng an inhabitant of (the village of) Zawada.

Genealogy / Wierzbicka, Wierzbicki family search in Poland [5]

WIERZBICKI: root-word wierzba (willow); toponymci tag from one of several localities in Poland called Wierzbica and a few named Wierzbice (Willowton, Willowville, Willowby, etc.)

Genealogy / I'm trying to track down where my great grandfather came from. Albert Czarnowsky any ideas?? [4]

CZARNOWSKI: root here is adj. czarny (black); it is a Polish surname which originated as a toponmyic tag form such localities as Czarnów, Czarnowo, Czarnówek or similar (Blackville, Blackly, Blackborough, Blackton - take your pick).

If the name were Czech or Slovak it would have been spelt Čarnovsky. If it was transltierated Russian/Ukrainian then it would be Charnovsky. Czarnowsky is a wierd hybrid.

Genealogy / Katarzyna / Anna / Ewa Niwelińska - can you help me? [7]

NIWELIŃSKA: root-word niwa (farmfield, meadow, pastureland); probably a toponymic tag from such localities as Niwa, Niwka, Niwki, Niwiska, Niwnica, etc.