PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Variant spelling of Polish surnames

dkupil — Sun Jan 15, 2017 11:50 pm

Author: dkupil

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2017 11:50 pm

My last name Kupillas also spelled Kupilas also seen Kupilasz I understand Z is silent. My great grandmother name Wasielewska seen varient spelling.

Re: Variant spelling of Polish surnames

vbstar2010 — Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:50 pm

Author: vbstar2010

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:50 pm

The surname for my Dębowski ancestors from Zagórów parish was recorded as "Dąbek" between 1751-1776 which included the marriage record for my 5x great grandparents and the birth records for their children. By the time the children were marrying, about 1795/1797, and from then on, the surname appears as "Dębowski".

I've also had relatives who have "Americanized" their surnames for business, for example --
Grzesiak > Gray
Wróblewski > Robie and Robel
Suplicki > Suplick (here for some reason this branch just dropped the last "i"; don't know for what reason)

Re: Variant spelling of Polish surnames

gdeborski — Tue Nov 01, 2016 11:01 am

Author: gdeborski

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 11:01 am

Hi Megan,

In my Family Tree I have found several cases where the surname was spelled differently in the records. For example, I have a gg grandfather who was found in records as Kuranka, Kurenka, Kurenke, and Korenka. It made tracking him down quite a challenge. One thing that helped me was realizing that most/all of my ancestors were illiterate. That meant that the way the surnames were recorded by the parish priest was dependent upon 1- what he heard from the family member presenting the information, and 2 - how long he had been in the parish church/how long he might have know the family. If a priest was in the same parish for many years, the surnames tended to have the same spelling. If a new priest came in, the surname recorded might be close phonetically, spelled differently.

I have found websites like Ivona - https://www.ivona.com/us/
helpful in showing that the various spellings, when spoken by a Polish speaker are very similar. I always have to remind myself that Polish and English pronunciations can be quite different.

Best of luck with your searching,

Gary D.

Variant spelling of Polish surnames

megsiek86 — Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:52 pm

Author: megsiek86

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:52 pm

Just a question out of curiousity, how common is it for there to be variant spellings of the same surname??? Within one line of my family, I have come across a surname spelled as both Blados and Bladosz which seems to be happening in the records during the 19th century. Can they be used interchangeably? Furthermore, my grandmother's maiden name has been spelled as both Wasilewska and Wasielewska in the records (early-mid 1900s) and I have now learnt that her brother further changed it in the 1950s or 1960s to be Waszelewski/a, so that all his descendants in Poland now spell it this way. I know that surnames have not always had the same significance as they do now, so I could understand it happening in the 1800s, but I'm puzzled as to why my great-uncle would have changed it. Has anyone else come across something like this within their families?
Megan.