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stewart

Joined: 07 Feb 2025
Replies: 51
Location: UK
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Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2025 5:43 pm Post subject: Anglicised Polish names

Someone who could be a relative changed their name to Newland when settling in England during or after WWII. They could just have seen this name somewhere and liked it but I wondered if there was an obvious Polish name this could have been derived from?

Sophia
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Joined: 05 Oct 2014
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Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2025 7:12 pm Post subject: Re: Anglicised Polish names

stewart wrote:

Hi Stewart,

Over my years of genealogy research I have seen a few trends with name changes such as actually translating a name from one language to another, or keeping the original spelling but changing the pronunciation, or keeping the pronunciation as close to the original as possible by changing the spelling. There are so many possibilities. To make a long story short, sometimes you can decipher the logic of the name change and sometimes there is no apparent connection whatsoever.

The word "new" in Polish is "nowy." There are extremely few Polish surnames that begin with "Nowy..." (for example, Nowy itself, along with Nowysz and Nowyj and Nowyk, all very very rare) so I do not think this avenue gets you anywhere.

I really think that your best way forward is to search on the National Archives website. Here is what you see when you search for "Newland" there:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r/1?_q=Newland&_d=HO&_hb=tna

I did not scroll through the entire result, but almost immediately found there was one person who naturalized with the surname Newland whose original name was Neumeyer. Keep scrolling through it and you may find others.

Good luck,
Sophia

Note added 2/24: I would like to add to my earlier statement. The word for "new" in Polish can actually be nowy, nowe or nowa, depending on whether the noun being modified is masculine, neuter or feminine. There are, as I said, very few Polish surnames beginning with "Nowy..." and also not many beginning with "Nowe...." but quite a few beginning with "Nowa...."
This does not change my recommendation to use the UK National Archives website for looking at name changes.

Last edited by Sophia on Mon Feb 24, 2025 6:19 am; edited 1 time in total

stewart

Joined: 07 Feb 2025
Replies: 51
Location: UK
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Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2025 7:55 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the comment and the link Sophia. I looked at the Neumeyer entry and it says the record is closed until 2075. However, there are 2 names there and the Newlands in question were 2 brothers so that's interesting. Pity it doesn't indicate where they'reresident. Also there is a Raymond Newland who was Raimund Neumeyer from Germany, so Newland seems the name of choice for the Neumeyers

stewart

Joined: 07 Feb 2025
Replies: 51
Location: UK
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Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2025 8:03 pm Post subject:

From AI The German surname Neumeyer means "new farmer" or "newcomer". It comes from the Middle High German words niuwe which means "new" and meier which means "steward tenant farmer".

Sophia
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Joined: 05 Oct 2014
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Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2025 9:30 am Post subject:

stewart wrote:

Hi Stewart,
Instead of searching on "Newland" in the UK National Archives, make your search term "Neumeyer." In those results, you will find two places of residence in England for Neumeyers turned Newland.
It is possible that these are members of the same family despite living in different places.
Sophia

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