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Name Meaning Of "Polinary" in Poland


Nickidewbear 23 | 609
5 Oct 2016 #1
Is "Polinary" a contraction of "Polin" and "Ary"?
jon357 74 | 21,770
5 Oct 2016 #2
This might be useful. I've also heard it as a sort of plural of "binary". Nothing to do with Poland - could it be a spelling mistake?

sitelinks.info/search/polinary/
OP Nickidewbear 23 | 609
5 Oct 2016 #3
No. My cousin had that name, as did other Jews and many Poles per genealogy.com/ftm/s/l/e/Steven-W-Slesinger-Melbourne/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0213.html
DominicB - | 2,707
5 Oct 2016 #4
Looks like a variation on Apolinary, which is a Polish forename. The English version (and Latin original) would be Apollinaris. Several figures from antiquity and Chistian saints have held that name.
jon357 74 | 21,770
5 Oct 2016 #5
Agreed, in fact it even says that if you look. It seems that whoever transcribed it online left a space after the A. It's an old-fashioned Catholic Christian name, pretty well out of use nowadays.

Google Apollonius of Tyana, a very interesting historical figure.
OP Nickidewbear 23 | 609
6 Oct 2016 #6
On the documents, though, it actually says "Polinary". Maybe in his case, it was a contraction (His mother was Pauline nee Eckmann, and his father was Anthony. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't use a name like "Apollos" or a variant.).
jon357 74 | 21,770
6 Oct 2016 #7
That wouldn't ring true as a contraction. If it's actually like that on the original, the most likely scenario is an American official who didn't speak Polish, inaccurately recording a Polish Christian name. There have been examples here of people who had documents from the US with innacurately copied names, placenames etc.
DominicB - | 2,707
6 Oct 2016 #8
His mother was Pauline nee Eckmann, and his father was Anthony.

Europeans don't play with names nearly as much as English speakers do. The kind of thing you're describing is pretty much unique to English speakers, who have a long, long history of doing all sorts of things with names, and words in general, just for $hits and giggles. So your "contraction" theory, though plausible in an English speaking country, is way outside the norm on the continent.

Like John, I'm inclined to view it as either a clerical error or, perhaps, an actual variation based on Apolinary. It was a fashionable name in Catholic countries the 1800s. This is by far the most plausible explanation.

Also, the "au" Pauline sounds like the "o" in Apollonaris only to many, but not all, modern Americans. This is called the caught/cot merger in linguistics, and didn't become widespread in American English until quite recently. Before then, and for many Americans still, they were pronounced quite differently. Outside of modern American English, they are pronounced so differently that a pun of the sort you are proposing is very implausible. They are pronounced completely differently in Polish.
Marysienka 1 | 195
6 Oct 2016 #9
Google search in Polish shows some "baby names" websites with Apolinary - nicknames/diminutives Polinary.

Apolinary sounds strange now, but it was more popular before. So either someone didn't write the fist letter, or used this nickname.

If the mother was American enough to use American naming customs- Polish people can't help you then.

(seems strange that trere are many Polinarys on English search but only "Apolinary" in Polish.
OP Nickidewbear 23 | 609
14 Oct 2016 #10
So your "contraction" theory...is way outside the norm on the continent.

The thing is, though, he was a Jew (not a European at all) and an American (and his dad was of a Litvish-Poylisher family).
google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=poylish
In fact, one of our relatives, Bolesław Andrulewicz, made a sure point of distinguishing us from Poles in a letter to another relative during the Holocaust.


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