-ski/-ska, -scy/ski, -wicz - Polish surnames help

Buzz youre so so right!!
i was reading all of it and finally someone knew what he is writing:)
-icz is lithuanian, but people from ages are traveling ;) so you can find person with endind of name everywhere, mayby written different...

my name is tobolkiewicz living in the uk, what part of poland were you from?

witz is usually Jewish. As in Horowitz, Abramowitz, etc.
wicz is usually Polish. I heard it meant "son of ".

Both mean "son of". The thig is that Jews always mispelled the languages they spoke.

Well if you don't know something , ask Google ! :))

Surnames ending witch -wicz come from Tatars or Armenian. For exemple Abakanowicz, Achmetowicz, Assanowicz, Chazbijewicz (Tatars) and Agopsowicz, Awedykowicz, Isakowicz, Isakiewicz, Manugiewicz, Sarkisiewicz, Torosiewicz, Torosowicz (Armenia)

Surnames ending with -uk come from Ukraine

With -ski, -dzki, -cki endings come from Polish szlachta

With -ow, -ew ending are Russian names.

With -us or -is ending are Lithuania names.

There is a problem with Jewish surnames because until XVIII century, Jews in Poland had no surnames. They lived usually in small communities and named themselves for example as Abraham ibn Tobia (Abraham son of Tobia). In XVIII in Malopolska, which was on Austrian occupation, Jews was made to "named" themselves. And so you can have one of those surnames above and have Jewish ancestors. But generally many of Jewish surnames ending with -berg, -man, -wach, -baum

Surnames such as Uryga (latin:Auriga, eng. waggoner ), Kowal (smith) come from name of profession.


That's true, but who have surname like Kowalczyk, could be son of smith or... his adjunct. :)

We've always had way more landed gentry than land available in Poland.:)


I know a guy with surname ZABIJAK which means KILLER. This is amusing in itself but took on a competely different level of hilarity when the new police cars came out a couple years ago. They are silver/grey with a wide stripe across the doors and resemble the paint scheme of a lot of taxis. He called a taxi, giving his name, went out of the pub after 10 minutes, nicely tanked, and stumbled into the back seat of a police car parked outside asking the " taxi drivers" - Is this for Zabijak?

We ? What we ? :)

I know a guy with surname ZABIJAK which means KILLER. This is amusing in itself but took on a competely different level of hilarity when the new police cars came out a couple years ago. They are silver/grey with a wide stripe across the doors and resemble the paint scheme of a lot of taxis. He called a taxi, giving his name, went out of the pub after 10 minutes, nicely tanked, and stumbled into the back seat of a police car parked outside asking the " taxi drivers" - Is this for Zabijak?

I've always liked names such as Butcher or Kat (executioner), they have really strong influence for the person who have one :)
Apropo police, there was a funny thing in Irish few months ago. Some of english newspaper consider the Irish policemans as the dumbest people because they wrote out a mandat on Prawo Jazdy (Driver Licence). They just thought that was the name of suspect ;))

But "zabijak" it's not exactly a killer. It's more like a pettifogger (pol.zabijaka), someone who like to drink, fight and sometimes to kill ;)

And it's also the name of two small towns in Poland.

That's a royal plural.


Your Polish is excellent, but your English is a work in progress. Look up pettifogger.

That's right, my english could be better :)
I sometimes use Google Translator which is strange. So what you suggest to use instead pettifogger ?

surnames can often be identified through the use certain endings including -icz, -wicz, -owicz, -ewicz, and -ycz which mean "son of."

By and large: surnames with suffixes: -ewicz, -owicz are paternital male surnames ("otczestwa") derivated from Russian language, ex. Abramowicz: "Abram's son"

poradnia.pwn.pl/lista.php?id=1601

Perhaps a rabble-rouser but thats more like a zawadjaka. I'm at a loss then.

There is huge difference between "russian language" and "eastern borderlands" (Pod wpływem ruskim, kresowym (Ukraina, Białoruś i pogranicza ) przyrostki te przyjęły formę -owicz, -ewicz, czyli końcowe -cz funkcjonuje już od wieku XV. ). As the definition says those endings could come from not only Russia but also Ukraine or Belarus. In XVII century Tatars culture spreed all over Ukraine.

Btw I took my definition from pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polskie_nazwiska


Sounds promising ;)

ok, but if my name is Groszewicz it means I am son of coins??? funny...

Grosz could have been someone's nick. Maybe it started out as dusigrosz (penny-pincher --attention Scots!) and later got shortened just to Grosz. When the bloke fathered a son, etc., etc. Conversely, it could have started out as the German/Yiddish Groß (big, large), but the -ewicz ending would have been a patornymic indicator all the same.

i should mention that the word order is wrong for genitive (eta ivanov sin) should be (eat sin ivanov) as this particular word order is never changed in russian even though it is flexible. and polish uses the same logic wicz should be pronouced as vich or vits depending on region we have this in russian also as ivanovich but this is patryonymic(middle name) in russian. for females it would be ivanova and this middle name tells us her fathers name is ivan pronouced in russian as ee vahn ah vich ivanovna ee vahn

Would IVANOVA be Ivan's wife and IVANOVNA his daughter?
Polish does something like that with the surname: Man = Tomczak (Thomson), wife = Tomczakowa, daughter = Tomczakówna (the latter ending is not used that much anymore).

My surname is £okucewicz and I believe it derives from Belarus/Poland border a town called £ozowe.

£OKUCEWICZ: possible soruce - archaic word łoktusza (borrowing from archaic German Lakentuch); a coarse canvas material, sail-cloth; hypothesis: someone got nicknamed £oktusz or £oktuc because he made or traded in such cloth, possibly distorted into £okut or £okuc. When he fathered a son - bingo! - £okucewicz (???)

Him and his father were both tailors.....you cant be far wrong!

Nicknames-turned-surnames emerged centuries ago. Most likely your immediate ancestors even as far back as great-great-grandparents no longer worked at the occupation indicated by the surname. In otehr words, if you're introduced to a John Baker, you probably don't ask him what kind of bread he bakes. Sure, maybe back in 1382 or 1519, somebody got called Baker because he actually baked bread and buns, but soon it became just another name with no occupational connotation.

My grandfather was Kulasewicz and was a Cossack....any ideas where that familly name originated? Any info is much appreciated! :)

KULASEWICZ: the -wicz ending and its equivalents in the Ruthenian tongues is always a patronymic tag indicating who one's father was. The root-word kulas can mean a cripple, someone who limps, or a horse-blanket. In fact, the term kulasy kozackie was known at one time to mean Cossack horse blankets (the cloth placed beneath the saddle). So Kulasewicz would have originated to identify either 'limpy's kid' or the son of someone somehow associated with horse-blankets (weaving or trading in them perhaps).

For more info on this please contact me

Not sure if I'm understanding it right. My surname is -ski, but I'm a girl.

polonius3 - Wow...thank you. I am specifically looking to find a family origin with the few facts that I have. For example; I'm told that not just anyone was conscripted to be a cossack. I understand that it was part of a man's heritage, either through land ownership or duty within a family. What I'm unclear on is which is the specific nationality of someone who's family was detined to become a member of the cossack army.

I will contact you for more information.

I am doing some research on my Great Grandmother. She according to my mom always said that she was Lithuanian. Her maiden name was Boltnowicz according to her obituary but I cannot find any information on it. I know very little about surnames. Could there possible be an alternate spelling? She came over her from Russia in about 1905 and there are no record of her coming through Ellis island. Thanks for any help!

BO£TNOWICZ: origin obscure; possibly from Bołtniewo in Smolensk area of Russia or Bołtowo in Belarus (both once part of Poland).
Other possible sources -- bołtać (to stir up trouble, cause confusion) or (literally) to beat or whisk a liquid (modern Polish bełtać).
The basic Lithuanian form would have been Boltnovièius and its feminine form Boltnovièienė.

Just like Buzz mentioned above, -icz is the Lithuanian ending of a surname, as far as I know.

no, it is not, as far as I know.

SKI is male.

SKA is female.

Just the same whether you are married or not!

I've seen some couples where the female has just taken her husbands surname spelt as SKI because they weren't aware of the correct form? Usually happens when the wife isn't Polish and her husband is of Polish descent and doesn't always realise the way the surname should be spelt for a female.

SCY/SKY is nonsense in this situation.