PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Adalbertus/Wojciech

Richard Kuzniak — Wed Feb 23, 2022 11:05 am

Author: Richard Kuzniak

Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 11:05 am

Thank you for your reply Sophia. My family is from around Szamotuly area in Wielkopolska. I have encountered Latin, German and Polish records. I appreciate your explanation of this name usage.

Re: Adalbertus/Wojciech

Sophia — Wed Feb 23, 2022 7:13 am

Author: Sophia

Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 7:13 am

Richard Kuzniak wrote:

Could some kind knowledgeable person please summarize the Adalbertus/Wojciech relation? If you were named Wojciech, would you automatically have Adalbertus as a second, perhaps baptismal name?
I notice also that on many older records (early 1700s or so),only first names and village were used. When did last names become common?

Hi Richard,
In a nutshell, if your language was Polish, in daily use your name would be Wojciech.
If, in the time and place in which your birth or marriage or death occurred the language of the records was Latin, your name would appear as Adalbertus in those records. As Dave Nowicki has said several times over the years on this forum, the fact that a Polish person's baptismal name was written in Latin did not mean that they were ever called by that name in everyday life. They might not even be aware that that's how their name appeared in the records.
The rules for which language was used in records depends on where and when you lived. In the Russian partition of Poland, for example, there is a period of records being written in Latin, a period of records being written in Polish, and a period of records being written in Russian, and depending on a person's lifespan, they could have a baptismal record in one language and a marriage record in another. If this Wojciech emigrated to an English-speaking country, he might switch over to using Adalbert (or Albert, or even George) as his name.
Hopefully someone else can answer your question about when last names became common, but I expect that it depended on where a person lived, so you might want to specify that detail.
Best regards,
Sophia

Re: Adalbertus/Wojciech

Richard Kuzniak — Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:18 pm

Author: Richard Kuzniak

Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:18 pm

IOW what is his legal name? When would he be referred to by the other name?

Adalbertus/Wojciech

Richard Kuzniak — Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:12 pm

Author: Richard Kuzniak

Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 7:12 pm

Could some kind knowledgeable person please summarize the Adalbertus/Wojciech relation? If you were named Wojciech, would you automatically have Adalbertus as a second, perhaps baptismal name?
I notice also that on many older records (early 1700s or so),only first names and village were used. When did last names become common?