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

ZAWACKI: variant spelling of Zawadzki - root-word zawada (hindrance, osbtacle, impediment), the -dzki (-cki and -ski) ending pont to toponymic origin; dozens of localities in Poland called Zawada or Zawady plus Zawadzki Las Zawadzka Wola and Zawadzkie.

TATAR: nationality-derived surname referring to the Tatar (Mongolian) warriors who invaded Poland in the Middle Ages and also served the Polish king. Nearly 2,000 Poles now use the Tatar surname.

Language / Do Poles prefer US American or UK English language? [147]

Can anyone guessstimate (there priobably aren't any official figures) the national breakdown of native English-speaking teachers of Engklish in Poland? Besides US and UK, Australia, Canada, S. Africa?

Life / Babcia or Busha - any social class difference? [359]

BUDKA for DZIADZIUŚ? Why not? anyone interested in onomastics (the study of names) has often encountered what may be called unique-case scenarios. These are nicknames or pet names limited to a single locality, family or even one branch of that family. They can arise for various reasons, inclduign somone's tendency to use or overuse a certain expression until it becomes his nickname. Soemone opften saying 'a i owszem' may eventually get dubbed Owszem.

This is just a wild guess, but let's imagine a grandpa coming round at 5 AM to wake the kids for fishing saying 'pobukda'. After a while the kids might start calling him pobudka or budka for short.

Anotehr thing, is that the same people can go by different names. In an Old World village centureis ago the same person might be called Jasiak (John's boy) by some, Kulawy (limpy) by others, Piekarczyk (baker's helper) by others and Rakowski by someone who remembered hsi family hailed from Rakowo.

Also in Ameirca, one side of the family calls one of the kids Billy, to someone else be's Will, one aunt refers to him as Butch and someone else as Bubba.

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

ZALESKI: topographic nick for someone living on the other side of the forest or a toponymic one for an inhabitant of Zalesie (Overwood)
KAMOSA: from verb komosić się (to nervously fidget, be irritable)

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

ŚWIERKOSZ: probably dervied from świerk (spruce) or świerkot (chirping, warbling - the sound birds make) or topo from locality incorporating same, eg Świerkocin, Świerków, etc.

RÓG: horn or topo from Rogi, Rogowo, etc.
BOŚ: possibly hypocoristic form of Bolesław, Borzysław or Bogusław or topo

Genealogy / Replications of medals in Poland? [4]

Google medalierstwo. The hits will be in Polish but there may be contact data for e-mailing an enquiry.

Genealogy / Help with ancestry...Trzynka [12]

Probably topo nick from Trzyniec

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

OSKWAREK: probably topo nick for inhabitant of Oskwarkowa in Małopolska (S. Poland).

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

MICHEJ: probbaly derived friom Michał or a locality incorporating that name; however Scottish roots cannot be ruled out. Michejda originated as MacLeod. Quite a few Scots emirgated to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as religious dissenters and mechants.

Genealogy / Help with ancestry...Trzynka [12]

There has been a good deal of cultural, linguistic and marital interaction between the German and Polish ethnic zones. Many Germans have such names as Nowak, Wischnewski, Kowal, Kruk, etc., and many Poles sign themselves Szulc, Szmit, Krauze, Szuman, etc. A name alone is not necessarily an indicator of ethnicity. Also, many people esp. in border areas were bicultural and bilingual and/or of mixed parenatge.

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

WASZCZAK: is oen of severlaadifferent patronymic nicks derived from the first name Wasyl. Others include Wasiak, Waszczyk, Wasyluk and Wasilewicz.

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

Or Żebczyński which exists in Poand, although it's quite rare.

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

£UCKA: looks to be the fem. form of £ucki, a topo nick for an inhabitant of the city of £uck or environs. Since so many things have happened to names over the ages, teh Christian name £ukasz cannot be ruled out as a source, and £ucjan seems even more plausible.

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

DEKOWSKI: topo nick for an inhabitant of Deka in Pomerania

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

CORRECTING TYPO: Klimczyk = Clemson

DĘBIAK: probably topo nikc from Dęba, Dębie, Dębe (Oaks, Oakton, Oakly, Oakville) or one of the many other localtieis incorporating the "dęb-" root.

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

Indeed, Tekla z Trzasków would be Tekla née Trzaska, esp. that being the 1930s. In 1597, it might have been Tekla z Trzaskowa likely to eventually evovle into Tekla Trzaskowska.

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

KLUT: possibly from the archaic Polish word kluta (a sloven) - 10 bearers in today's Poland
LAFERY: possible derivation - the archaic word lafa (borrowed from Turkish) meaning annual army pay
SCHÖNBAUM: German for beautiful tree
TEKLA z TRZASKOWA: Centuries ago such names were common amongst the nobiltiy; eventually Andzrej z Czajkowa evolved into Andrzej Czajkowski zust as in English Egbert of Stanford became simply Egbert Stanford. If the ceritifate was issued in the 1930s, presmably the surname was missing, hence only the native locality (Trzasków) got recorded.

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

The best are the works of the late Kazimierz Rymut (in Polish only).

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

CZERWIŃSKI: root-word czerw (red larva, maggot); -ski names are usually topopnymic, eg from Czerwińsk.

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

Pudelski - probably toponymic from Pudłów; some 300 users in Poland, about one-third (the single largest concentration) from Wielkopolska's Kalisz and Poznań areas.

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

There were 4 noble lines amongst the £aniewskis, entitled to use: Korczak, Wieże, Odrowąż and Znin c-o-a (the latter quite obscure). Mazowsze appears to be the main £aniewski stronghold, esp. Greater Warsaw as well as the Ciechanów and Płock areas. But there are scattered clusters in and around Białystok, Olsztyn, £ódź, Sieradz, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Szczecin and Zielona Góra.

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

DŻARNOWSKI/DZIARNOWSKI: arhcaic root-word dziarno (variant forms: dżarno, dziarń, drząstwo, etc.) = kind of fine gravel; or archaic adj. dziarny (hard-working). Several hundred bearers of Dziarnowski spelling in Poland.

Language / Spelling / pronunciation of Polish words and phrases [30]

How about ...miłość i urodę...?

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

OLSZANOWSKI: root-word olcha (alder tree); toponymic nick from Olszanowo or Olszany (Alderton); biggest concentration in SE Poland around Przemyśl and surrounds.

GINA: origin obscure; possibly from ginąć (to perish or get lost) or zginać (to bend)???

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

GOLAŃSKI: toponymic nick from the village of Golany in the Mazowsze region.

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

Dołowicz or Dolovitz looks to be a patronymic, so the question remains: is there a first name something like Dol in Yiddish/Hebrew? If so, it would mean son of Dol. Piekanin sounds Russian. Perhaps as in Polish the piek (pyek) root has to do with baking or maybe with some locality incorporating that root. I ran across a place in Russia called Pikany. could that have been it?

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

Marqoz - You'll probably know this. When someone got a coat of arms from the king, was it confirmed by some royal urząd. If so, which one. What about those in later centuries who were adopted into a clan or entered via marriage, did they go somewhere to have their noble status officially confirmed. Was it some urząd grodzki, as you mentioned? What about changes made in coat of arms which were renamed. Were these arbitrarily made by the crest-bearers themselves and simply confirmed by some urząd. Or was there some heraldic official who suggested elements of the c-o-a?

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

Does Tatarewicz derive from a tribe of mountain Jews/Tartars? Is it a fairly popular name in Poland? How and when were surnames officially/legally assigned in old Poland?

I shouldn't think so. Tatarewicz means son of the Tatar -- a reference to the Mongolian invaders who plagued Europe in the Middle Age.

You may be confusing the root of this name with the Tati language, an Iranian tongue spoken by mountain Jews in the Caucases.
It would take a book to explain the details and time-frame of how surnames emerged and were assigned. The Jews were the last to have them because of their unique custom of changing patronymics. The partitioning powrs in the 18th and 19th centuries enacted laws requiring Jews and others to adopt a single surname passed down from one generation to the next. Earlier, a Jew named Abel whose dad was known as Mosze was known as Abel Mosiewicz. But when Abel fathered a son of his own and named him Icek, the son became Icek Ablewicz. You can imagine the confusion this caused amongst the methodical 'Ordnung muß sein' German authorities!

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

In Polish the spelling would probably be Szuski - meaning and origin obscure. The Polish word szus (from German Schuß - shot, surge, other sudden rapdi movement) once meant an obsession (mieć szusa=to be nuts about) or silly outburst. Only 4 people surnamed Szuski in Poland.