Writing "to" and "from" on gifts in Polish.

I am trying to address my Christmas gifts in Polish. Do I write, "dla" or "do" for to? Is "od" for from correct?

None if you don't use the right case.

It's 'dla' and 'od' but as Wulkan pointed out you need the right case and it depends on a name/word. For example: to Adam from Anna ---> dla Adama od Anny

Thanks! I am doing this to teach the youngsters in the family some Polish. Would some one be so kind as to name the cases used, and some brief rules, especially declensions using diminutives of male and female names?

mowicpopolsku.com/polish-grammar/cases/genitive/

Here's an article about it. But it doesn't discuss names.
I know it's rather private but you can just post the names here. They might be a bit tricky if they're English, though.

Dopełniacz - kogo? czego?

Well one of the things that I am doing is to teach the kids the Polish version of their names. Their great-great grandparents had their names recorded in Latin, so they had a Polish name in Poland, but could have an Anglo name abroad without ever changing their "given" name. Sometimes, the names don't quite match. I know a Jadwiga who prefers to be called Joanne rather than Heather.

So the names I need help with are: Felja, Ania, Kaśka, Tadzek, Maks, Karolek, and Krzysiek.

Roman Catholic church records did have the Latin versions of the given names, indeed.

As for the names you mentioned, the nominative-genitive forms are:

Ania- Ani
(Or Anna-Anny)

Kaśka- Kaśka
(Or Kasia-Kasi, Katarzyna-Katarzyny)

Maks-Maksa
(Or Maksymilian- Maksymiliana)

Karolek - Karolka
(Or Karol-Karola)

Krzysiek- Krzyśka
(Or Krzyś- Krzysia, Krzysztof- Krzysztofa)

As for Tadzek, it's either Tadek or Tadzik so:
Tadek-Tadka or Tadzik- Tadzika. As for other forms of the name: Tadeusz-Tadeusza and Tadzio-Tadzia.

Felja is more difficult. It might be Fela-Feli or Felicja- Felicji.

You need to use the genitive form after dla/od so for example 'dla Ani od Krzyśka' etc.

Generally, it looks like male diminutives add an "a" in the genitive, and female diminutives add a "y" or "I", but sometimes that rule has exceptions.

Dziadek always called Babcia "Felja", so would that be Felji? Tadeusz was always Tadz in the family, so to distinguish Tadz, Sr. from Tadz, Jr., Tadzek is used. (Tadzik sounds like something Asia from Tajikistan!) Perhaps some of these are older diminutives when Poland was geographically larger and more diverse? The subtlety in Polish is in the declensions, and we can be creative the diminutives, yes?

I am also assuming that only the name changes, but titles like stryjek or wujek, and stryjenka or ciotka don't...

In Hapsburg Galicia and after, the Greek Catholic church also kept its birth, marriage and death records in Latin as well.

Nah, I think you just spell them like an English speaker. Poles spell them differently.
When you wrote Felja I read it as /felya/ and got confused. Now I'm pretty sure Felja is your transcription of Felcia - the dimunitive of Felicja. The genitive would be Felci.

I have never heard of Tadz unless they weren't etnically Polish. You mention the Greek Catholic Church so they might have been of, for example, Ruthenian origin. Or it's just an American version of Polish like 'busia'. In Poland the dimunitive forms of Tadeusz are Tadek, Tadzik or Tadzio (for a little boy)

Nouns change forms, too. So dla wujka/stryjka/cioci/stryjenki.

Babcia was born Felikska, not Felicja. They both spoke Polish as a first language. Tadz as the diminutive of Tadeusz came from them. I have no doubt that it was correct usage previously. Languages do evolve over time. stryjek and stryjenka are considered old fashioned today in Poland, but can still be heard in Polonia abroad.

Feliksa? Fela or Felcia would be possible dimunitives from Feliksa, too. Felikska isn't Polish either.
Well, as for Tadz... as I said: I don't recall coming across it either in spoken Polish, in Polish films or in literature.
Stryjek and stryjenka were used by my grandma. One of her brothers was called Tadeusz- she called him Tadek.
Don't take it personally. I'm just talking about Polish.

Felikska is an older Polish name, although it may have been more popular in the Russian ruled Kingdom of Poland. See here:


telegram.com/article/20120303/OBIT/203030303

Here's a Tadzek in Poland:
linkedin.com/in/tadzek-goryszewski-a2074156

My understanding is that there is a license to be creative with the diminutives. So, I am going with Tadza and Felji as the genitives of the diminutives in our family. It looks right to me. Tadzika is OK too, since it sounds something like Tadzie, an Anglicized version of Tadz or Tadzek.

Well, you asked about Polish. I tried to help you as a native speaker. I have already told you what it looks like in Poland.

As for Felikska - any Polish source?
As for Tadzyk - there's only one anonymous account. The language listed is Kashubian. Perhaps a local variation. But again there seemto be no other results for Tadzek.

As for the genitive forms of Tadz, Tadzek or Felikska - I just don't know.

Might Felikska itself be diminutive of Feliksa?

Not in Polish, Felikska looks deeply not Polish (like Tadz). I would assume that dimunitives for Feliksa would be similar to those for Felicja (Fela, Felcia etc)

Maybe the names are mis-remembered or very idiosyncratic, like in-jokes....

Perhaps not in modern Polish or within the confines of today's Poland, but Babcia's name appears on her birth certificate as Felikska. One of her parents was a Nowakowski, and she was delivered by a midwife with a very Polish surname. Both of her parents came from within the borders of the present Polish state. The name, therefore, must be Polish. That said, only my grandfather called her Felja, and his family came from the Kresy.

My great-grandfather's name was Tadeusz. Tadz may be a contraction of Tadzio, since in direct address the name has always been Tadziu. The aunt born in the Kresy preferred to simply use "Tad", as did her siblings, but Tadek was never used in our family.

Thank you all for your answers. The kids ripped the wrap off the gifts with glee, with little concern about the declinations or the proper diminutives. I do what I can to instill Polish culture in them. When they get older, they may appreciate their heritage more. When I was young, I remember my grandparents listening to the Polish kolędy. I appreciate them much more now.

Tadziu is the vocative form of Tadzio and perfectly fine in Polish. Tadz must have evolved in your American family. Dimunitives are pretty regular here - especially for such old fashioned names as Tadeusz. If anyone wanted to shorten Tadzio in Polish, it would be Tadź, as 'dz' is softened by 'i' in Tadzio and Tadz would sound too hard. But again there are regular dimunitives for names used in Poland for centuries and I have never come across Tadź in spoken Polish, film or literature. That just sounds like a foreign form of a Polish name. So is Tad - like a mixture of Tadek and Ted. You can't forget your family was influenced by English even if they were born in Poland. It's Ponglish like sklep na cornerze instead of sklep na rogu.

Felikska is a mispelling, I'm afraid. I find it difficult to pronounce and I'm a native speaker. It can't have appeared in that form in Latin Church books. It doesn't sound Polish and a dimunitive of any sort can't have appeared on a birth certificate. It's a formal document. If it's really on her birth certificate, someone must have misspelled it - either a half-literate Polish scribe or an American clerk.

You provided a link to Ms Zaleski's obituary. Her sister's obituary is also online and the name is spelled Feliksa there. And it has just struck me that if you're related to these two ladies, Feliksa's husband was called Stanisław. So perhaps he was called Staś not Tadz, Staszek not Tadzek. Other dimunitives for Stanisław are also Stasiek, Stasiu, Stasio.

Anyway, all the best for you.
Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

So then I am assuming that the genitive of Tadź would be Tadźa. Babcia was regarded as having the best Polish in the family, and she wrote to her cousins in Poland regularly in Polish. The diacritic marks likely disappeared in English.


Perhaps it is. From the oral history, no one ever called Babcia Feliksa, or Felikska. From what I can see online, Felixa is the Latina form of the name Felicja. That would get transliterated into Polish phonics as Feliksa. So then Felikska is either a misspelling or a diminutive influenced by another Slavic language that adds "ka". The name on her birth record was written "Felixka", and her mother's first name is also a little off. I am guessing that the midwife who wrote the birth record was only semi-literate.


I am not, or if so very, very distantly. I cited it since the error appears in more than my family's history.

Tadzia (dź can only appear at the end of a word or before a consonant, it's replaced by dzi before other vowels (or just dz before i)


Well all the slavic languages that border Polish do diminutives in very similar ways, and none of them, I think would allow the combination 'kska' at the end of a word (it doesn't sound remotely Slavic, let alone Polish, consonants do bunch up together but only in certain ways). The feminine -ka is added to a single consonant like Lidka (from Lidia) there might be cases where it could be added to two consonants if the first is a sonorant but.... after two obstruents is just .... no. just no. doesn't happen.


I think I mentioned once (not on this thread) that I knew someone born in the communist period with a different last name than the rest of her family because the hospital misspelled it (and communist bureaucracy made it too difficult to change).

My guess is that whoever wrote the birth certificate wanted to write Feliksa and started to write Felixa (for some reason) and then added the k for some other reason (questions of literacy or tiredness) and no one noticed until it was too late

@The Elves
The -ka dimunitive would be Felka or Feliska (the latter far less possible). As for Felikska, you mentioned Kresy - perhaps the person who wrote the name down wasn't Polish. It was a pretty ethically diverse area.

I still believe Tadz is an Americanised version of the Polish name. But it's part of your family history.
If you live abroad for years your mother tongue gets influenced by the language you're surrounded with. It's natural. I have seen It with a childhood friend of mine who moved to the USA twenty years ago or read it in my grandma's sister's letters - she had been living in Brazil for decades.

If you're not sure how to say something in Polish, feel free to ask here.

I think 'Feliksia' is possible as a dimunitive in Polish. Feliks --> Feliksa --> Feliksia.

How about Felisia?
Or simply Felcia?
@Ziemowit

Btw, can you spare a moment and read the thread? Have you heard of Tadz? Perhaps it's used where you live.

What is a single consonant differs in English and Polish or Russian transliterations. Kaśka or the Russian Katushka are both transliterated in English with a blend of two consonants (sh), while it is only one consonant letter in Polish and Russian. Conversely, the English and Latin "x" is transliterated as a double consonant in Polish and Russian, "ks" as in xerox/kseroks. That may explain things when the writer was either from the Kresy, where Polish and Eastern Slavic languages blended together in local dialects, or with a person who spoke Polish but was educated in formal Russian, etc. Things were a little different 100 years ago.

That would come from Felicjan --> Felicja --> Felcia or Felisia (less likely).
Felicja and Fekiksa are different names.


That is a Polish Americanism. The Polish diminutives are Tadek, Tadzio or Tadzik.

The sound represented in Russian transliteration as 'sh' is a single consonant, I'm talking about sounds not letters and adding -ka to ks- is just really not Polish (or any Slavic I can think of).

X has been used sometimes in Polish for 'ks' but it's never been used in Russian where x represents the same sound as Polish 'ch' (like Spanish j).

I think the person just getting confused and/or not being that literate is probably responsible for the very weird spelling what was almost certainly meant to be Feliksa (a name that used to be more common than it is now).

There is a very, very, very slight chance that rather than xka they thought they were writing (or meant to write) -kxa or -xxa to represent something like 'kks'. Ukrainian has some double consonants although I have no idea if the sequence -kks- is possible (I doubt it).

In Polish, yes. I am very certain that when the vital records were recorded in Latin, that both names were recorded as "Felixa", and then the family decided how Polish to make the name, i.e., Felicja being more Polish than the transliteration, from Latin, Feliksa.


Perhaps, in the modern day, but what existed over 100 years ago? Since Felixka/Felikska appears in more than one place thousands of miles apart, it very well could be a lesser known Slavic microlanguage from the Kresy like Poleshuk, or one of the many tutajesz dialects that existed in the region until WWII.


Google translate disagrees with you, since "копия xerox" has been adopted in Russian. and is pronounced similar to English.

Bardzo wam wszystkim dziękuję.
Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

The thing is that Felikska is just really difficult to pronounce .... that is what makes me believe it's a mispelling.
Does Felikska appear in the Latin records, on the birth cerificate or in an American document?
If it's in the Latin records, are you sure you read the handwriting right? What years are we talking about? 1850s?
Finally, were your ancestors Polish, Ruthenian or Poleshuk or any other ethnicity? Because right now I'm confused ...

@The Elves

The name would be Felicia in Latin, not Felixa, which looks bizarre in Latin. And Felikska is an obvious mis-reading. There is no such name, nor has there ever been. As Kaprys said, it's hard to pronounce in Polish and doesn't follow Polish name-formation rules. Nor does it look Russian, Ukrainian or Ruthenian. It would be Felicja in Polish. Feliksa would be the genitive of a male name, as in "córka Feliksa", meaning daughter of Feliks.

There was an old name Feliksa, but no Felikska (and even if the dimunitive Felikska existed it wouldn't be recorded on the birth certificate).

My favorite Feliksa, the now forgotten heretic...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feliksa_Koz%C5%82owska


That's not a Russian use of x, it's importing the original English spelling (in the latin alphabet there's no letter 'r' in the Russian alphabet). That's not an example of cyrillic x being used for the ks sound.