How do i pronounce Majkrzak last name?

How do i pronounce this last name; Majkrzak.

MY Kshak

Mike Shack

can that be the only way? i was told that most of the letters were silent and that seems how i would have said it.

Because there are some difficult consonant clusters in Polish,
some people try to simplify their names for the benefit of speakers of other languages.

Not that this name is difficult for the English speaker.

It does include the 'rz' letter combination that stands for something like the English 'sh'.


The stress should be on the first syllable.

'krz' is pronounced "sh"

I've noticed that the k or p in krz, prz can be fairly weakly pronounced,
but you did state in your first post here that the k is pronounced.

Yes this is the right way with the 'k' joining the 'mike'! So it is simply the English short name Mike plus shuck (the shuck as in the Polish word luskac).

btw, Majkrzak is a little incorrect form of Majchrzak, it probably comes from the fact that in many (especially rural) ares the combination of "-chrz-" is prononuced like "-krz-" (in "chrz" both sounds are voiced, in "krz" both voiceless)

I'm confused. Is "krz" pronounced "sh"? Is the "k" silent or is it pronounced? Is it like that with every "krz" including names, like Krzysztof for example?

krz - is always pronounced as "ksz" (ksh).

a little off topic:
Voiceless (I hope I'm using the correct English term) doesn't mean mute, voiced-voiceless pairs of consonants are for example g-k, b-p, d-t, and by the way, in English sometimes you pronounce k, p, t, in a little different way than in Polish, with more aspiration. Polish has pretty strict rules about voiced/voiceless pronounciation, the voiced consonants (b, d, dz, dź, dż, g, w, z, ź, ż/rz) become voiceless (p, t, c, ć, cz, k, f, s, ś, sz) at the end of the word (Bug, bóg, buk - all pronounced the same in nominative case) and in the proximity of other voicelss consonant (that's why the voiceless "k" changes the "rz" into "sz")

This rule doesn't apply to the voiced consonants that don't have a corresponding voiceless sound in Polish phonetics (j, l, ł, m, n, r), and originally "h" was voiced and "ch" voiceless, but now only few people (with a very "good ear", old-school actors, and some people originating from pre-war Eastern Poland) can pronounce the voiced "h", normally both "h" and "ch" are voiceless


And now I've realised I made a mistake in my post about Majchrzak having a voiced combo of "chrz" :)
I took off my headphones (I was listening to some music), said both words (Majkrzak and Majchrzak) aloud, and it's like I just wrote in the general rules, "-chrz-" is voiceless ("-hsz-"), sorry for a confusion, if someone read it :)

Thanks for the explanation. I've noticed that some letters are pronounced alot more softly in Polish than in English. The "k" in ksz is probably not pronounced exactly as it is in English. It's probably alot softer.

It's pronounced "my shack."