Talk:Polish names

Are you sure that in Poland in XV century only nobles had surnames?
Consider Nicolaus Copernicus, or more strictly Mikołaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus is a latinized form; latinized forms were common during Middle Ages and Renaissance).

He was not a nobleman - he was a townsman; neverthless, he had a family name. Kopernik was surely his family name and not a nickname (as he inherited this, so did his father), and it was a Polish family name (Copernicus' father was Polish).
 * I believe that everyone had surnames in Poland, but the noblemen had surnamed ending in '...ski' --Iamcon 01:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it could make some mistakes. Not all Noble familly had their names ended by =-ski" or "-cki". Many old, powerfull famiilies had names like Górka, Pac, Odrowąż, Ostroróg, Kostka and so on. Also many non-nobles, AFAIR especialy in Galicia, changed their names to more "nobele" adding "-cki" or "-ski" for example from "Kowal" to "Kowalski". So ending of surname is not enough to say that someone was noble or not. Radomil talk 11:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, Niklas Koppernigk was his name and he was German. I know this was old but somebody had to bring some truth to this discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.17.140.107 (talk) 19:23, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Wojciech?
Is `Wojciech' really a Slavic name?
 * Yes, the Polish Wikipedia says it literally means "glad to be a warrior". The Polish name Wojciech probably comes for the Czech Vojtěch, but both languages are of course Slavic. – Kpalion (talk) 11:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Birthday
Part oabout name'sday and birthday is very East Poland POV. In Western part of country (Greater Poland, Upper Silesia) birthday were more popular than name's day at least since 19th century. Radomil talk 18:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC) These observations might be anecdotal and/or subjective. I have lived in Wrocław for many years and in my experience namedays are much more observed than birthdays. But that could just reflect my circle of family, friends and acquaintances... or my age group. The topic could benefit from a proper sociological survey. Grandmotherfrompeoria (talk) 16:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

namedays
I live in western Poland and namesday are more often celebrated than birthdays. I think that that is the same in whole Poland so you should changed it.

It depends what do Tou mean "western Poland". In Greater Poland (or more correctly in ex- Grand Duchy of Poznań), Upper Silesia and Eastern Pommerania Birthday's are much more popular. Radomil talk 12:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

First name surname vs. Surname first name
Is really putting one's surname first considered incorrect? I guess that whenever an emphasis is on surname it is ok to use this form. An example would be going through an alphabetically ordered list of people or similar. Or it might be just that I'm not using my own language properly ;) Kelner (talk) 22:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Patronymic Middle Names
In my (Polish) family, there is a pattern of using the father's first name as the son's middle name. Growing up, I was given the impression that this is common, but nothing of this sort is mentioned in the article. Can someone help clear this up?

If this is just a weird custom in my family, well, then I guess it would be of only personal interest. But if this was once more common, perhaps it merits mentioning? If so, has it fallen out of favor? (Maybe the Russian system of patronymics is relevant... It seems plausible that people might have wanted to avoid continuing any custom that is reminiscent of a Russian one. That would be an interesting anthropological tidbit, if it were true...)

MJM74 (talk) 05:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I live in Poland and have never heard of such a custom being widespread in this country, so it's most probably only a family tradition. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 13:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yea Im living in Wielkopolska and have my 2nd name same like my father 1st name. - int And birthday is most popular than nameday circa 60proc - 40proc -int —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.20.223.191 (talk) 22:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Edits to Diaspora names
I have removed the section on names being changed in Germany from ski to sky, because it's simply not true. Compare: [Kujawsky|http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/kujawsky.html] and [Kujawski|http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/kujawsky.html]. Same check for other names (e.g. Kowalski vs Kowalsky, Majchrzak vs. Mayschak) show a similar trend, that is about 10% of the entire population have -sky endings.

The rest of the text seems to be a product of author's imagination. I have seen "Hendy de Kowalski" in Florida, but never any strange edits that the text suggests. Most are simple conversions, as in the case of Fon's owner Martín Varsavsky

colleague ≠ kolega
The paragraph about distinction between the "friends" and "colleagues" needs to be changed. Author clearly made a quite common mistake comparing English 'colleague' to Polish 'kolega'. The correct translations:
 * 1) 'przyjaciel' = 'close friend',
 * 2) 'kolega' = 'friend',
 * 3) 'współpracownik' (or 'kolega z pracy') = 'colleague'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.159.87.7 (talk) 23:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Article and source mismatch
The article says that, as of 2009, the three most common Polish first names for males are Piotr, Krzysztof, and Andrzej while, for females, they are Anna, Maria, and Katarzyna. However, the PDF file in the citation, dated 2009, gives a completely different set of names: Jakub, Kacper, and Szymon for males and Julia, Maja, and Zuzanna for females. According to the PDF, Piotr is the 9th most common male name, Krzysztof is 24th, and Andrzej is out of the most common 50, while Anna is the 14th most common female name, Maria is 21st, and Katarzyna is 32nd. While a ranking update based on more current information would be nice, there is still a glaring error either way. 69.171.160.42 (talk) 03:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Kanemski
What is the origin of the surname Kanemski (f. Kanemska)? 95.111.106.220 (talk) 12:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC) -An immirgant name transcription error from Kamenski. -M.Altenmann >t 17:13, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Sectioning
Sectioning is sloppy: the order and the level of subsections sometimes illogical. I fixed one, but see more. I have no time now. -M.Altenmann >t 17:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I have been copyediting this article, and I do not understand what these three sentences are trying to say. I have removed them and placed them here in case anyone wants to re-phrase them and put them back. You can find their context from the revision on 7/3/2016.

"For example, in English often changes w to v and sz to sh. Similar changes sometimes occur in French, as well as the addition to Polish aristocratic family names with the nobiliary particles of de (la particule) or von/zu, when for instance the ski/cki/dzki surnames reportedly already contain the preposition of de/von/zu used in other languages when distinguishing names of the nobility."

"In countries where not all people with de or von in their names were formally nobles, however, the adjectival suffix -ski, -ski or -sky is found in many other Slavic languages, and in Poland, the adjectival form of a name was not reserved to the szlachta (nobility)."

"Uneducated people often use plural of the common names for plural of surnames, and the feminine plural form of the adjectival surnames (felt as a neutral one, in fact non-existent) in bi-gender situation." Leschnei (talk) 21:28, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Polish heraldry and genealogy discussion
Please join the discussion in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Heraldry and vexillology about how to correctly handle historical Polish concepts "ród",  "ród herbowy" vs. "House" & "Clan", etc. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

A question about inheriting surnames
This article is a little confusing, probably as a typical example of having a lot of editors adding bits and pieces and not having an editor who keeps it together as one coherent work. But my question is that if men and women have the different ending of names, does that mean that female children don't inherit their father's surname? In other words, if Mr. Kowalski has a daughter, her last name (on her birth certificate) would not be Kowalski, but something like Kowalska? How likely would it be for an adult woman to have a last name ending in "ski"? __209.179.36.56 (talk) 20:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Kowalski and Kowalska are the same surname, just with different gender suffixes. If Kowalski has a daughter, the name on her birth certificate (and everywhere else) is Kowalska. No woman has a name that ends with -ski, and no man has a name that ends with -ska. Amnadya (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

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