THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME?

I'm wondering about a translation of a family surname (my great great grandmother). I think it was originally written as Siwoniow, but translated as Siwona. Could it have been Siwonia? She lived in Gęsice Świętokrzyskie. Thank you.

@Konwinski

There are two possibilities, and they are both probably variants of what was originally the same name. Both are centered around Kielce county, which contains Gęsice. The first is Siwoń, and the second is Siwonia. Neither name is common, but neither is very rare, either. Both occur in about the same frequency. Siwoniów is an inflectional form, so ignore it.

@DominicB

Thank you for confirming what I suspected. Do you (or anyone else) know if there are similar surnames in Russian or German or ...? I haven't found any clues as to the origin of the name.

@Konwinski

It's a native Polish name, based on the Polish word for gray or white (hair). No need to look outside of Poland for an origin.

@crmondo
The handwriting is really fancy but hard to read ...
As for the first image I think it's Stanisława Supka, służąca (?) - servant, maid, born on April 16th, 1898, religion:R (Roman Catholic, I suppose). The place of birth is given as Dolne / Dalne Szamotuły (???). Szamotuły (if I read it right)is both a town and a powiat (sort of an administrative unit) so it's either Dolne Szamotuły (Lower Szamotuły) or a village called Dolne/Dalne in the powiat. But I haven't found anything like that connected to Szamotuły.

As for the other image the Polish names should be spelled Marcin, Agnieszka and Andrzej. There's no letter V in the Polish alphabet. I have come across Valtos as an anglicised form of Woltosz but there are also surnames like Waltos, Waltos all probably derived from Walter or walt.

worsten.org/grandpolio/szamotuly/weok_kazmierz.htm

According to the link above Dalne is another name of Dolne Pole, a village in gmina Kazmierz, powiat Szamotuły.

Which town/village would the name Radecki, Drzewiecki and Wierzbicki come from? Thanks in advance

Wierzbicki - Wierzbica, Wierzbice - there are multiple place names like this in Poland
Drzewiecki - Drzewce, Drzewki - multipe as well
Radecki - Radecz - there is only one place name in present day Poland like that, and that is in Lower Silesia - many Polish surnames were however formed from localities in present day Ukraine, Byelorussia and Lithuania

Possible Jewish surnames? Origin of these surnames? Anyone?

Rachwal

Zemski, Zemska, Zemsky

Elczuk, Elczyk

@Unknown1
Rachwał is derived from Raphael - other variants are Rachwael, Rachwa, Rachał, Rachoł, Rafał.
Elczuk sounds kind of Ukrainian. Elczyk sounds more Polish. I'm not sure about the origin/meaning of Elczyk/Elczuk as well as Zemski. As you can see in the links below they're not very popular.

moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/zemski.html
moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/elczyk.html

Rachwał is far more popular moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/rachwa%25C5%2582.html
I know one Rachwał family. They're not Jewish which doesn't mean they ancestors weren't. On the other hand, many Jewish families adopted Polish surnames.

@TAK1730
You can't always pin a name to a given place ....
Nowadays we can just guess what the origin of our ancestors' were based on the available data.

ZIEMSKI: adjective from earth, soil (ziemia); once used in such terms as majątek ziemski aka folwark, a landed agricultural holding or grange.
Zemsky may be a transliteration of the Cyrillic 3eмcкий. Transliterators often forget that the Cyrillic "e" is not the same as the English "e" but actually has a "yeh" sound. But there is also a Czech surname Zemský.

@kaprys
These names are Topographic, so you can.

@TAK1730
As I said - not always. Secondly, on two many occassions there are several places by the same name.

What about name Dłużniewska?

@TAK1730
There are two villages called Dluzniewo so that's probably where the surname originated.

I was informed that my Drzewiecki ancestor came from Greater Poland, what's the possibility his family originated from Drzewice in Greater Poland?

What is the meaning and origin of the surname Pucykowicz ?

-owicz -ewicz names are patronymic in origin just like Anderson, Johnson in English - having said that I have no idea what a name (probably nickname) Pucyk meant

Pucykowicz Is written in Polish, from Russian to English it would be Puchikovich and in the Belarusian Latin script Pučikovič. I'm wanting to find out the meaning and origin. If anyone can help it would be great ! Thank you

Wesolowski?

WESOŁOWSKI: root-word wesoły (merry, gay, happy, jolly); but -owski endings usually signal toponymic nicknames-turned-surnames, hence more likely than not it is traceable to such localities as Wesoła, Wesołów, Wesołowo, Wesołówka and similar of which there are quite a few in Poland. These are rougly translatable as Happyville, Gayton, Merryburg, Jollywood or something along those lines. Three gentry lines in the Wesołowski family each with a separate coat of arms. More info at: research60@gmail

PUCYKOWICZ: possibly from pucować (to clean, scour, polish. shine, groom /of a horse/) originally a borrowing from German putzen. Someone with a fetish for keeping something (boots, saddle, metal ornaments, etc.) polished to a high gloss could have earned the nickname of pucuś or pucyk. When he fathered a son -- instant Pucykowicz! It cold have also been Pucykiewicz.

Topographic names were derived from terrain (topographic) features, for example Zaleski from "za lasem", Podgórski from "pod górą"; toponymic surnames were derived from the names of localities, in this case a village called Zalesie or Podgórze respectively.

Exceedingly unlikely. Stankiewicz derives it from a old Polish word for "mouth" or "cheek".

Thank you.

How do you pronounce PUCYKOWICZ in Polish? Is the surname of Polish or Ruthenian origin?

Roughly like the English words put-sick-of-itch, with the accent on the "of". It's a Polish surname of Polish origin. It's rather rare, unique to a single family, and is found predominantly around Krosno in southern Poland.

I would say 'each' rather than 'itch'. I know I'm being a bit picky but the 'i' in Polish is the 'ee' sound in English. I'd say the nearest you could get to it with English phonetics is p*o-ts-ick-of-each'. The stupid, bloody, censorship thingee won't let me type the 'p' word properly but we all know what it is!

What does the first name/surname Parasza mean?

I always thought surnames ending in kowicz were from the kresy region and more Russian/Belarusian/Ukrainian than Polish. Is that true?

It's the Russian term for a sort of bucket with a cover that was used as a sort of primitive toilet, used in labor and prisoner of war camps, for example.

There is a Polish surname Paraszka, with a "k", that derives from an old spelling of the word for "disaster, calamity, catastrophe". It's a very, very rare name, though.


Totally false, as are any notions that it is Jewish. It's Polish as Polish can be.

A distant family member of mine had the first name Parasza, as far as I can tell there is a Russian girls name Parasha/параша which was given to a girl if she was born on good Friday. Could that be the case? Polish version is Parasza?

@kranskylover

There is a (very uncommon) Russian girl's name "Parasha", much more common in very old literature and folk stories than in current use. I can't think of anything, nor have I ever heard, anything like it in Polish.