Polish surnames: Origin and Meaning?

Polish Surnames: Do they all mean something?
I met someone called Gruszka (sp?) and, in my dictionary's definition, it meant 'Peartree'.
Also Wałęsa (possibly the worlds most famous Polish surname) means 'wanderer' or something similar....I don't have it with me as I write this.

British surnames usually stem from a persons occupation or place of origin.
Example. Spittle (my surname) has a dictionary definition of 'Saliva' (I know! Lovely name!) But the origin is Spittler. Or a type of Inn keeper a few centuries ago.
Hospitality is a derivative.
My surname is most often seen spelt 'Spittal'. It's exactly the same root but English spelling was only standardised around 120 years ago. It's just luck that I was in a part of the family that chose the same spelling as the bodily fluid.
It's even worse when one considers my initial is 'P'.

Often a persons surname will be a place. John Wakefield, James Newcastle, Jennifer York....

Do Polish surnames follow a similar history?

check this one out:surname analysis

I used this website it the past to get info on my surname. The webmaster used to give surname info free of charge but the site appears to have changed considerably and that option doesn't seem to be available.

http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_endings.htm
William F. Hoffman
WFHoffman@prodigy.net

Or you can buy his book:

amazon.com/Polish-Surnames-Origins-Meanings-Second/dp/0924207043



Maybe. The word for hospital in polish is szpital. I think in german it is something similar.

Janowitz or Yanowicz was my husbands name it means son of John in Polish

Polish and probably all otehr european surnames following a similar pattern. Polish ones are based on ia the following:
1) Occupation (eg Piekarz = baker)
2) Place of origin (Brzeziński = the bloke from Brzezina/Birchville)
3) Characteristic (Cimięga = duffer, clumsy oaf)
4) Common household and barnyard objects, animals, food, etc. -- typical of peasant names: Łopata = spade; Wróbel = Sparrow)
5) Nationality (Niemiec = German)
6) Polonised foreign names (Michejda derived from Scottish McCleod) -- BTW itinerant Scots traders were once so common in the sprawling Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that a (now obnolete) English saying once referred to "a Scots pedlar's pack in Poland" - meaning everything but the kitchen sink.

The peasants names (Spade, Sparrow) reminded me that CAPONE is Italian for capon. A castrated chicken!
It's not surprising Alphonse had something to proove!



That you for that, Polonius3. I'm always interested to learn anything about my surname. maybe I have Polish relatives?

Pawol Szpital.

You may be interested to know that there is only 1 person in Poland currently using the Szpital surname, but 31 people are named Szpitalak (a patroynmic meaning son of the bloke called Szpital).
Szpital nowadays means hospital but back when the surname was emerging it had a broader range of meanings including: poorhouse, homeless shelter, hostel for travellers, etc. BTW etymlogically the words host, hospital, hotel, hospice as well as the Germanic Gast, the English guest and the Polish gość all go back to the same Indo-European root.

Ive heard that Polish people with names ending in "Ski" or "Ska" originate from a family that has had wealth.I dont know how true this is though.

I heard that too, but there is quite a few last names with Ski/Ska on the end.

Maybe they all were/are wealthy then, my wife told me this, but her name also ended in Ska.

Those who had Ski or Sksa ending were not necessary wealthy but rather noblemen (szlachta) - at least according to "popular history".

BTW:
WALERIAN TREPKA in 16th/17th century had written LIBER GENERATIONIS PLEBEANORUM, It contains a list of people of plebeian origin who attempted, by one illegal means or another, to become members of the nobility.
Trepka on Podgurski:
http://www.podgourski.net/content/1739.html

What about Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz? ;)

The -ski, -cki and -dzki in Polish surnames are adjectival endings (that is why they must agree with the person they describe: Mańkowski for males and Mańkowska for females). In the majority of cases, these are surnames of toponymic origin, ie they were derived from the name of a region, town, village or, in the case of nobility, estate.
In general, the -ki ending surnames were used by more people of noble stature than other surnames. In the olden days a nobleman owning the village and/or estate of Dąbków (Oakville) would have been known as Jan z Dąbkowa (John of Oakwood), but in time it got adjectivalised into Jan Dąbkowski (in English tradition the ‘of’ got dropped and it became simply John Oakwood).
But peasants living in the village would also be referred to by the Dąbkowski nickname which eventually evolved into a bona fide surname..
According to rough estimates, at various times in Polish history up to 10% of the population enjoyed noble status. The percentage among the bearers of ski-ending names would be somewhat higher.
The main reason for many non-ski-type surnames amongst the nobility was the practice of ennobling entire villages in exchange for defending the local prince’s castle or performing some service to the Crown. We therefore got a whole class of impoverished gentry who differed little from peasants in a neighbouring village in terms of wealth but had a coat of arms and sword to prove their noble status. This was especially true of the Podlasie region along the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian borderlands. That area’s castle-towns were frequently attacked by the pagan Jadvingians and the local peasantry had to be enlisted to fend off the assault.