Genealogy / Americans of Polish descent. How many of us are on Polish forums? [216]

You are what you want to be. Unless you live in a country that forces you to speak a specifc language, celebrate specific holidays and eat speific foods, you are free to choose. And America is certainly a land of choice. A person can choose that in his ancestral culture and mainstream US culture that strikes his/her fancy. No-one is required to declare whether they are Americans or Poles or Polonians or AmPols or whatever. But many Polish Americans resent being grouped in census reports as just 'whites', when other groups (Afros, Hispanics, Asians, Amerindians, etc.) are getting special perks and privileges based on ethnicity.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

DERENIEWSKI: from dereń (dogwood), a tree whiose berries are used in Poland to make dereniówka (a home-made cordial) Since -ewski names are usually toponymic, it probably came from some village called Dereniewo or Dereniew.

For more information please contact me

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

STEC: probably a pet from of Stefan using the German pattern of short one-syllable forms including Stetz (Stefan), Dietz (from Dietrich) and Detz (Dettlaff).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

TONTA£A: from now archaic verb tątać (to thoroughly search every corner, bustle about or fastidiously perform some task); Karłowicz & Co. define it as krzątać się. So a person known to act this way would have been nicknamed Tątała or Tontała.

BARAN, WALCZAK, STĘPIEŃ & OSTROWSKI
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BARAN: looks, bleats or smells like an old ram, or herds sheeps or hails from Baranów (Ramsville).

WALCZAK: patornymic nick from Walek or Waluś (pet forms of Walenty or Walerian) = Val's boy.

STĘPIEŃ: someone who married into money or hails from Stępina or Stępów.

OSTROWSKI: topo nick from Ostrów (an old word for island).

For more information on these and other Polish surnames please contact me

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

There was massive Polonian support for post-war Poladn. My paternal grandparents actually sent a horse to relatives in Bydgoszcz, and the maternal side was constantyl sending packages to the Lublin region. In Hamtramck there were travel and parcel agencies with big 'PACZKI DO POLSKI' signs in their windows. This never stopped but increased during the Solidarity period. During the 'S' carnival PolAms sent monery and gifts in kind such as typewriters and mimeograph machines as well as stocks of paper to Solidairty. I was personally instrumental in sending a Smith-Corona with a Polish keyboard to Solidarity Mazowsze. In those pre-Internet years, being able to communicate optuside the official regime-cotnrolled system was crucial to the oppositon movement. Following Gen. Jabberwocky's martial-law crackdown brancches of the Pomsot organisation sprouted up across Polonia to help the families of the incarcerated in Poland and assist Solidarity refugees in putting down roots in America. Of course, without the peaceful Solidarity revolution nothing would have changed, but the process was constantly assisted by Polonia, no matter how much you dislike, revile and ridicule it.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

KĘSIKOWSKI - DOBOSZEŃSKI

KĘSIKOWSKI: root-word kęsik (small bit of food, morsel, bite); Kęsikowski could have arisen as a toponymic nick from Kęsików or Kęsikowo (Morselville) or as a patronymic one for the son of someone nicknamed Kęsik.

DOBOSZEŃSKI: variant spelling of the more common Doboszyński; from dobosz (army drummer); possibly a patronymic nick for his son or maybe even a Romanian toponymic connection to the locality of Doboşeni.

For more information please contact me

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

How many brave freedom-fighters were there in PRL? Probably less than 1% of society actually conspired against the regime. Don't tell me you or your parents didn't watch Czterej Pancerni and oterh propaganda shows with bated breath. And when dziadek tried to set the kids straight while listening to RFE, he was scolded by his adult kids: "Nie mąć dzieciakom w głowie!" (Don't put such nonsense into the youngsters' heads).

No, it was the emigration that never gave up, maintained an émigré government that constantly worked to overthrow the regime, and its Skarb Narodowy was an international fund-raising effort supporoted by Polonians world-wide for precisely that purpose.

The state insignias of the Second Republic were transferred by émigré president Ryszard Kaczorowski to Lech Wałęsa. The PRL was ignroed and it went from 2nd to 3rd republic without the 45-year-long stain on the nation's honour called the PRL.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

When all you PRL-ovians or your parents were brown-nosing and playing ball with the Soviet-installed regime, obediently paying homage to the red leaders in Mayday parades, mouthing Soviet lies at school, joining the ZMS and suchlike to further your careers and gain, promotions, perks and privileges, it was the Polonia that kept the Polish spirit alive, tirelessly pressing for Poland's independence at every opportuntiy, keeping alive the truth about Katyń and other historical events. Polonians did so because they felt pride in their Polish heritage and love for their ancestral homeland, even many of those already born abroad.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Polglish (a la: Nasza nejberka klinuje flory w ofisie za osiem baków i kwodra) as well as Engpol (a la: We was on a wedding yesterday and today we gonna go by busia's and then to the poprawiny) are ethnic dialects in their own right, no more deserving of ridicule than the Franglais of Québec or the Afro-speak of America's slums.

Genealogy / Popular Polish First Names? [152]

ZBIGNIEW: from roots zbyć (get rid of) and gniew (anger). Zbygniew was seen in old chronicles as early as AD 1097, but due to a misreading and miscopying in the 16th century it got respelled Zbigniew. Regardless of what the initial etymology of a first name was, today they are merely names with no special significance.

Genealogy / Adopted from Poland; trying to find my biological parents [99]

Assistance in tracking down biological parents by adopted children may perhaps be obtained from the Rutkowski detective agency: biuro@rutkowskidetektyw.pl;
Good luck - Powodzenia!

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

KOLĘDA: derived from Latin calendae (first days of the month). It made its way into the Eastern Orthodox realm to mean New Year's Day and spread throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and was extended to things (songs, gifts, etc.) pertaining to the entire Christmas-New Year's season. Kaledos is the Lithuanian word for Christmas itself. In Poland kolęda means both a Christmas carol as well as the New Year's pastoral visits to the homes of parishioners. As a surname it is also spell as Kolenda.

For more information please contact me

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

DZIEKAN: This is the proper spelling. As noted above it means dean. It can be a university official, or a priest in charge of 10 parishes (dekanat), or a senior diplomat. It could have origianted as an occupational/titular nick or a topo nick from places such as Dziekanów (Deanville).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Gosdinksi is not a Polish spelling so it's no wonder no-one in Poland uses this surname as submitted. The closest to that spelling would be:

GO-DZIŃSDKI: topo nick from Goździn or

GOŚCIŃSKI: nick for some hospitable soul or topo nick from Gościnna.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

£AWRUK: Ukrainian patronymic nick from first name Lavrentiy (Eng: £awrence;
Polish: Wawrzyniec), hence originally meaning something like 'Larry's kid'.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

FELIKS: from Latin felix (happy, joyous); Chorzów makes sense becuase this name's stronghold is obviosuly Śląsk (Silesia). That includes the Katowice industrial district, the Częstochowa area to the north of it and the Opole region to the west of it. Another bastion is neighboring Małopolska, esp. the Kraków area.

Yes, in general the Ruthenian patronymic ending typcial of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian borderlands, where the Tatars mainly settled, is found in the surnames of many Polish Tatars. Their roots include Arabic names lile Achmatowicz (from Ahmed), Jewish ones (Dawidowicz) and Greek ones (Aleksandrowicz).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

ALEKSANDROWICZ: a nice clear-cut patronymic nick or a topo-patronymic one. So either the dad had been baptized Aleksander or he hailed from Aleksandrów and got the Aleksander as a topo tag.

For more information please contact me

Language / Polish slang phrases - most popular. [630]

The English bobbies once had copper-coloured (brass) buttons on their uniforms, hence the term copper. Or at least that's what one urban legend claims.

Anyone know why a Polish cop is called a glina?

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Plofkin is not a Polish surname. It sounds Russian (compare Pushkin). Some Russian Jews have surnames ending in -kin.

TOCZYŃSKI: The Toczyński surname probably emerged as a topo nick from one of several localities called Toczeń.

History / Poles in the Crusades to the Holy Land [75]

Anyone heard the story (probably an urban legend) about Poles under Leszek Biały being exempted from the regular crusade because their beer rations did not hold up well in the torrid climate of the Middle East. No beer, no fight to recapture the Holy Land!

Food / Pierogi recipe and filling from my grandmother [179]

Re mushroom pierogi why not take up some of the moisture with bread crumbs? Not too much, just enough to firm up the filling a bit.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

BATKOWSKI: topo nick from Batków in Soviet-annexed Krzemieniec district (now in Ukraine). Root-word batko (Uktrainian for Eastern Othodox priest), so roughly translatable as Clergyville, Priestbury or something in that vein.

Merged thread:
ZALESKI, ZALEWSKI, ZA£ĘSKI

ZALESKI: topographic (overwood, other side of the forest) or topo nick from villages called Zalesie

ZALEWSKI: topographic (from zalew = lagoon, bay, floodwater) or topo nick from villages called Zalew or Zalewo

ZA£ĘSKI: topographic (łeg = marshy field + prefix za = beyond) or topo nick from Załęże.

Food / What exactly is Polish Bread? [91]

suite101.com/content/polish-rye-bread-recipe-a51675
This one looks OK, except for such 'innovations' as the bread improver and the brown sugar. Brown sugar is never used in authentic Polish baking or cooking.

Genealogy / How did Leszek Miller get the surname Miller - is it a Polish name? [30]

MILLER/MILER: originally from German occupational nick Müller (miller, mill owner); more than 6,000 people in Poland called Miller and over 4,000 spelling it Miler. Originally the soruce was German but that could have been many generations if not centuries ago. Probably Leszek Miller has got only a few drops of Teutonic blood contaminating his otherwise Slavonic circulatory system. Incidentally, there were blue-bloods amongst Poland's Millers entitled to use the Pomian c-o-a. It is unlikely that Comrade Leszek was one of their descendants, but one never knows for sure.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

Tell that to the Brits and Spanish who lost loved ones in thsoe terrorsit attacks.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

You never heard of St Augustine's 'just war'? Should Poles have set idly by like sheep and let themselves be overrun by the Heil Hitler krauts like the corwardly Czechs and Frogs? The war on terrorism is a war against evil -- something ever decent human beign should support.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

Where is the constitutional basis stating that there is one class of citizens, the clergy, who are not allowed to express their ideas or try to persuade anyone. Everysbody is allowed to persuade, advcoate, appeal, promote, advertise, etc., etc. Are you advocating extralegal measures against thoise you don't happen to agree with. Would you like yoruself to be muzzled because someone does not share your opinions?

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

How has the Church interfered in the workings of a democratic system? Are priests and bishops not citizens? Should they alone be deprived of free speech. They did not send goon squads streaming into the Sejm to obstruct a vote. All they did was speak their mind. They have no power other than persuasion. They have to reflect the principles espoused by the Church and not try to curry favour with the plebians and keep the pews filled on Sunday. They can raise the spectre of excommunication, but the godless will laugh or shrug that off anyway, so where's the problem? When the beer barons, drug lords, homo agitators, mobile phone folks, rock stars and others try to sell something -- that's OK. But when a churchman does the same, he is interfering. That is called Kali's morality: Kali ukraść krowę dobrze, Kalemu ukraść - źle! The Poles online will understand.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

ZAB£OCKI: topo nick from Zabłocie (overbog, opposite side of the swap)

BOROCZKI ET AL: No such names in Polish; check spelling; possibly Borucz (from first name Borzyław) or Borucki - topo nick from Borucin.