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The following information was obtained via e-mail from William F. Hoffman
author of: Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings. I
copied information about each surname just as I received it from him.
One
source to which he constantly refers is the Sl~ownik nazwisk wspo~l~czes~nie
w Polsce uz|ywanych [Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland], edited
by Kazimierz Rymut and published in 1992 by the Polish Language Institute.
It used a 1990 Polish government database with data on about 94% of the Polish
population to extract all surnames borne by Polish citizens and to give a
breakdown of villages they lived in by province. It gives only how many by
that name in Poland, and how many living in each
province.
Bureiza
Bureiza would be an old-fashioned spelling; in modern Polish they'd use a
"j" instead of an "i", so it would be Burejza.
As of 1990 there were 65 Polish citizens named Burejza. They lived in the following provinces: Bielsko-Biala (42),
Katowice (18), Legnica (2), Opole (3). This data tells us the name is found
exclusively in southcentral to southwestern Poland, in and near the region
called Silesia.
None of my sources mention this name - in fact, until I found there were 65
Poles called this as of 1990, I expected it would prove to be a mangled form of
some other name. I'm afraid I could find no information on its derivation.
Czeszewski
CZESZEWSKI would refer to the name of a place with which the family was
connected; if they were noble, it was most likely the name of an estate they
owned at some point, and if they were peasants, it was probably where they lived
or worked at some time. The name really means nothing more than "from Czeszów"
(there is at least one place by that name, 16 km. northeast of Trzebnica in what
used to be Wroclaw province) or "from Czeszewo" (at least two places
by that name, one in Pila province, one in Poznan province, 5.5 km. southwest of
Miloslaw, which is in turn 45 km. east-southeast of Poznan). Both names
mean literally "[place] of Czesz," and that is a short form or
nickname from the first name Czeslaw, which has no equivalent in English."
So CZESZEWSKI means "one from the place of Czesz," and could refer to
origin in any of the three places I've mentioned, and possibly to others that
don't show up in my sources because they're too small, have been renamed, or
have disappeared in the centuries since the surname was established.
As of 1990 there were 292 Polish citizens named Czeszewski, with the largest
numbers in the following provinces: Bydgoszcz 145, Gdanks 30, Katowice 2,
Koszalin 14, Lodz 1, Olsztyn 8, Pila 30, Poznan
20, Szczecin 3, Torun 34, and Warsaw 5. I'm afraid I don't have access to
further details such as first names or addresses, what I've given here is all I
have.
Gruba
GRUBA comes from the adjective _gruby_, "thick, stout."
As of 1990 there were 2,504 Polish citizens by this name. 960 of them lived
in Gdansk province, by far the
largest concentration in any one area; but there were sizable numbers all over
the country.
Konkel
KONKEL is from a German name Konkel, which derives from German names such as
Kunkel, which German
experts say means "spindle-maker." There is a similar name in
Polish, Ka~kol (the A~ represents
the nasal vowel written as an A with a tail under it and pronounced roughly like
"on"). That name is pronounced
roughly "KON-kell" and comes from the noun meaning "corn
cockle"; we see it spelled a number of different ways, including Ka~kol and
Konkol. So KONKEL could also be a Polish variation of that name. Only
genealogical research might uncover facts that would clearly establish which
derivation was applicable in a given family's case. Konkel could be a
variation of that Polish name in some cases, in others the German name.
As of 1990 there were 2,391 Polish citizens named Konkel, 4,131 named Ka~kol,
2,801 named Konkol, etc. The largest numbers of Konkels lived in the provinces
of Gdansk, 1,649, and Slupsk, 260. That geographical distribution suggests the
name is more often of German than Polish derivation. The Konkols were also most
common in Gdansk province -- 1,817 of the 2,801 lived there.
KONKEL is also spelled KONKIEL sometimes, but only 212 Poles used that spelling
as of 1990; they were scattered all over Poland, with no great concentration in
any one area.
Oborski
The name Oborski comes from the term obora, meaning "cow-shed,
barn." In practice the surname probably indicates a family came from,
owned (if noble) or worked as peasants at a village or estate named Obora, Obory,
Oborki, something like that (those places in turn, took their names from the
term for "cow-shed") - and there are several places with those names.
As of 1990 there were 1,029 Poles named Oborski, living all over
the country, with the largest numbers living in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (57),
Kielce (51), Lodz (68), Warsaw (72), and Zielona Gora
(59).
Pyrek
PYREK is pronounced roughly "PEER-eck." Polish name expert Prof.
Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book _Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames
of Poles]. He says PYREK appears in records as early as 1440, and explains that
names beginning with Pyr- can come from several roots, including _pyra_,
"pile of wood," _pyry_, "potatoes," and the verb _pyrkac'_,
"to run, jump." Some Polish names clearly come
from one thing and only one thing; others are harder because there are two or
more equally possible derivations, and without detailed research in to a given
family's background there's no way to know which is applicable in their
particular case. I'm afraid PYREK belongs in the latter category.
As of 1990 there were 2,053 Polish citizens named PYREK. They lived all over
Poland; there was no one area with which the name was particularly associated.
Schefka
Schefka is probably a Germanized spelling - Polish almost never uses the
combination "Sch" -, but German uses it often, to spell the sound we
spell "sh" and Poles spell "sz". So the Polish
spelling would be something like Szefka or Szewka.
This name actually could be spelled a number of ways, depending on how much
influence German had on the spelling and pronunciation. I found these
names in the Directory of Surnames, with total for all of Poland indicated and
numbers per province:
Schefka - total 0; there was at least one entry in the database, but data
was incomplete
Schefke - total 18; Gdansk (13), Poznan (5)
Szefka - total 102; Bydgoszcz (10), Gdansk (84), Slupsk (4), Walbrzych (4)
Szefke - total 57; Bydgoszca (19), Gdansk (37), Szczecin (1)
Szefko - total 2; Bialystok province (2) (northeastern Poland)
Szewka - total 20; Gdansk (19), Walbrzych (1)
Szewko - total 210; mainly in Bialystok province (144)
All these names are pronounced more or less the same, "Sheff-kah",
"Sheff-kuh" or "Sheff-koh", and thus all could be connected,
at least linquistically.
The exact derivation of this name is unclear, but the -ka/-ke/-ko ending
strongly suggests the name is originally of Polish origin, even if the spelling
has sometimes been Germanized. The mostly likely derivation is from the
root "szew" meaning "shoemaker". There is, however, a
possible connection with "szef" meaning "boss, chief, one in
charge" (from French "chef"). The -ka suffix is usually
diminutive, so that the name might mean "little shoemaker, little
boss." But -ka is also a suffix often added to words to make them
feminine, so that Szewka or Szefka could mean "female shoemaker, female
boss".
I can't rule out the possibility that the root of the word is the German
"Scheif, Scheff" meaning "crooked," referring perhaps to a
cripple with a crooked limb. It's not completely unheard of for a Slavic
diminutive suffix, such as -ek, -ka or -ko, to be added to a German root.
If so, the name might mean "little crooked one." But that
seems pretty farfetched. Since the name bears a Slavic diminutive suffix,
it's more likely the whole name is Slavic, and thus comes from either the root
meaning "shoemaker" or the root meaning "boss", rather than
the German root meaning "crooked".
Woitalowicz
Woitalowicz, pronounced "voy-tall-OH-vitch," is an old-fashioned
spelling; these days we'd expect Wojtalowicz. The owicz suffix means
"son of," so the name means "son of Wojtal." Wojtal
can come from two derivations. It can come from the noun "woyt",
meaning "administrative official in charge of a village or group of
villages"; or it can come from short forms of the popular Polish first name
Wojciech, pronounced "VOY-check." So the surname means either
"son of the wojt's kin" or "son of Wojciech's kin".
Wojtalowicz is rare - it's another name shown in the Surname Directory with a
frequency of 0, which means there was someone in Poland with that name but the
data was incomplete or corrupted. The form Wojtalewicz, pronounced "voy-tall-EH-vitch",
which means exactly the same thing, is far more common.
As of 1990 there were 755 Polish citizens by that
name. The largest numbers lived in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (214), and
Plock (204).
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