Ethnic backround of suffixes of Polish surnames

Hi Terri, thanks for your answer! I am curious why you think it's of Russian origin? Some Polish people told me it's a Polish name, but I doubt it too, because I know my grandparents lived in a German enclave in Romania/Bukovina. Based on what I've read so far on this forum I guessed the name Skiczuk might have been formed by "Skic" ( https://polishforums.com/genealogy/skicewicz-original-spelling-last-name-55510/ ) and the patronym -zuk, but that is supposedly Ukrainian, which is also quite strange given the fact they were Germans.

So what? The name is not German, nor Russian. Its Rusinskie/ could be Ukrainian could be Polish. Religion would be most telling although not in 100%.

By the way Terri ain't an expert nor is she Polish,

Was told my family name, Pajdo, is in fact not Polish, maybe Ruthenian or some such ethnicity.

@Ironside
Catholic I guess...

There you go - 100% Polish.

My wife last name was NIKOLAS not NICHOLAS and that is not Polish.I always wonder.

Hello, is it possible to have a surname hand written in Belarusian identified?

Scan it and post it (or post a link to a scan) the bigger the better and maybe someone can help....

Hello mafketis, thank you for your message. I've copied it to google.documents so that it can be viewed. Link to document is docs.google.com/document/d/1SdmEcBON9IUy3mt00UlGBdiVR2wuNFTGxeH3Hs7UJJA/edit?usp=sharing

Viewing requires permission, you might want to make it open. Once it's available give it at least a week (or month) for those who can help to see it.

Hello mafketis, I've changed the permission so anyone can view docs.google.com/document/d/1SdmEcBON9IUy3mt00UlGBdiVR2wuNFTGxeH3Hs7UJJA/edit?usp=sharing

@Brygida, I don't know Belarusian, but I can read Cyrillic - the surname looks like "Pagarcow" (if you don't know Polish then it would be pronounced "pagartzov").

Thank you Paulina, Does anyone know where you can search your ancestry with surnames? Pagarcow doesn't show up under Polish or Belarusian surnames in wikipedia or on ancestry.com. This is for my grandfather who was born in 1912 in Baranowicze, Belarus. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Sound like a Russian surname.

Thanks @Ironside

Like you I know cyrillic (though handwriting can be tough for me) I thought it looked more like Pagaricov (that downstroke before the c) but no version of that showed any google hits

I did just find a handful of hits for Paharicov (g in Belarus represents something like Czech h or Ukrainian g) so that might be something to follow.

On the other hand -ov is more Russian (in Belarusian it would be -ou or maybe -au)

"-ou" is also Czech as in "Na Sledanou!".

na shledanou but that's a different -ou (probably fem accusative adj - ą in Polish)

It's not the possesive suffix -ów in Polish, -ov in Russian (and Czech) and -ou in Belarusian (in the middle of words I don't know if it occurs as a word final element in family names....)

I'd forgotten that, thank you.

Hello Everyone, thank you for helping me with the mystery of my grandfather's name.

Ending the name in -ov sounds more Russian. My grandfather's religion was Russian Orthodox which he converted to Roman Catholic when he married my grandmother. They were both born in Baranowice then Belarus, now Poland.

Hi, what about Tobolkiewicz?

I can't find a surname suffix of my Polish family anywhere here nor online, but I'm wondering if it's originally Ukrainian or from another background. I'm asking about "Dziedzic." From what I know, my family is from Galicia, part of which is now present-day western Ukraine. My grandparents immigrated from the south-western region of Poland, around Krakow area. Suffix -ic seems similar to the Cyrillic -ets sound, and I know there is a geographical region called Dziedzice.

That's because it isn't a "suffixed" surname. It's a Polish surname which means "heir", "successor" or "squire" (one of the meanings of "dziedzic" is 'a man of high social standing who owns and lives on an estate in a rural area, especially the chief landowner in such an area' - squire) :)


Not a geographical region, but a part of a city that used to be a village. There are also a few villages with this name in Poland.

@Paulina
Dziękuję :) If I were to visit Poland, do you know if it would be easy to search church records for my family name in order to find my relatives still living there? I can't locate my family's parish, but it must be somewhere in Małopolska.