Origin/Meaning of Surnames

[Mr. Dustin]

The Obshyra mystery is revealed! Good job on figuring out the spelling.

So the -CHUK suffix does not denote "son/daughter of", it just makes a name masculine like how adding "-IA" to the end of the male name Stephan makes it the female name Stephania?

[JOLA JURASINSKA]

why don't you get in touch with Fred Hoffman - a walking encyclopedia regards surnames

WFHoffman@prodigy.net

[Mr. Dustin]

Thanks for the tip Jola!

I've tried sending an e-mail to that account twice now today and it did not work either time.

Are you sure he still uses this account?

[Mr. Dustin]

Just tried again today and it still won't send...

[zarjacks]

try him at
wmfhoffman@sbcglobal.net

[Mr. Dustin]

Seems to of gone through fine with this new address, thanks zarjacks.

[Mr. Dustin]

Well, I got a response and he was quite informative (so informative it's too many characters for one post so I've had to submit it as two!):

Dear Mr. Harrison,

> I posted a topic on the Geneaolgy forums at Ukraine.com concerning
> the meaning of my various family names, and a member by the name
> of Jola Jurasinska recommonded I ask you, as she called you "a
> walking encyclopedia regarding surnames".

I'm flattered Jola felt I was worth consulting. I don't regard myself as a true expert, one who does original research. But I do try to become familiar with the writings of those who are experts, and translate and summarize them for those who don't read Polish, Ukrainian, etc. I should add that I have more expertise with Polish names than Ukrainian. Still, you can't study Polish names without giving a lot of attention to Ukrainian names as well, because the two languages and peoples are so interconnected throughout history. So while I don't pretend to be a great expert on Ukrainian names, I think I can give you some useful info that's reasonably accurate.

> The names i'm concerned about, along with the best ideas for transliteration
> into Ukrainian and the meanings the member "Hannia" could think of for them are listed below:

This is interesting, because a lot of what Hannia said is right on target, and some of it is dead wrong (at least as I understand it). By and large, her info was good; I will point out those instances where I think she is wrong.

> Hryhoryshyn - Григоришин - equivalent to Georgeson in English.
> SZYN/SHYN suffix is matronymic in nature. Means BELONGING
> TO THE DAUGHTER OF HRYHORIJ/GREGORY.

The experts I've read all say that X-yshyn means "son of the woman of X." So HRYHORYSHYN would mean "son of Gregory's woman." I think it usually referred to a wife, not a daughter; at least that's the impression I got from what I've read. This is a distinctively Ukrainian formation; when you see a surname ending in -ishyn or -yshyn (or the Polish spellings -iszyn or -yszyn), you can pretty much bet the farm you're dealing with a Ukrainian. But the first name is Gregory, not George -- GEORGESON is not the equivalent of this name, not at all! This is more like the English surname GREGSON.

> Trush - Труш - old Kievan Rus name. Dating back to 9/10th century.
> Root word, might mean COWARD?

Prof. Kazimierz Rymut's book on Polish surnames, Nazwiska Polakow, says TRUSZ (as Poles spell it) can come from the noun that appears as trusz, truś, and trus -- it can mean "bunny" or "coward." He notes it can also have originated as a short form of the Ukrainian given name Трухан (Trukhan). This derivation may also apply to a Ukrainian name because the same basic root shows up in some Ukrainian words such as трус (trus), "coward, poltroon," трусь (trus'), "rabbit, coney," and трусик (trusyk), "little rabbit." I notice there's also a noun труш (trush) that means "ruins, rubble," but I don't know if that word played any part in surname formation. I think derivation from the word for "rabbit" or "coward," is possible, but I would not overlook for a moment the possibility it was a short form of that given name Trukhan. When you add endings to Polish and Ukrainian nouns ending in that guttural sound spelled X in Cyrillic, it can modify to the sound we spell SH, Poles spell SZ, represented by Ш in the Cyrillic alphabet. Maybe a Trukhan was nicknamed Trushko and that later was shortened to Trush. That's not implausible.

> Doskoch - Доскоч - Means a PERSON, WHO JUMPS FAR ENOUGH.

That is a plausible interpretation, since the preposition or prefix до (do) means "up to, as far as, all the way to," and the basic meaning of the root скоч (skoch) is "jump." But I notice in my Ukrainian dictionary that there's an adjective доскочний (doskochnyi) that means "able, agile, adept, persistent." I can see how that fits -- "one who's able to jump all the way, far enough" could be a figurative way of describing someone able and agile. So the name might refer literally to jumping ability, but I suspect it was a nickname for an ancestor who was unusually agile.

> Goran - Ґоран/Горан - Means HILL DWELLER.

I'd go along with this. It probably comes from the Slavic given name that means "mountainman, hill dweller." I get the impression that name shows up more often among Southern Slavs than Ukrainians -- see here:

Behind the Name: Meaning, Origin and History of the Name Goran

Of course, a Ukrainian ancestor might have inherited the name from a Serbian or Macedonian who resettled in Ukraine long ago. And who knows, the name may not be uncommon among Ukrainians, for that matter. But when I've heard of people named Goran, they usually were from the general area of Serbia or Macedonia.

> Demkiw - Демків

"Son/kin of Demko," which can be a short form of several given names such as Никодим (Nykodym = Nicodemus) or Дем'ян (Demian = Damien), or Demitr, a variant of Дмитро (Dmytro = Demetrius, compare Russian Dmitri).

> Skomorowski - Скоморовські - I am aware this is of Polish origin and Hannia
> has let me known that: The suffix SKI is Polish and denotes that nobility
> was purchased, as opposed to born to. In heraldry you will frequently
> find the SKI surname attached to a source noble name. The Polish King
> and the source name nobleman were paid in gold by the SKI hopeful.
> In return they received a title and a little property in the other reaches
> of the Polish Kingdom. In time it was the struggle between the lesser
> nobility and the magnates (source name guys) that eroded Poland's
> power to the point where it disappeared as a geopolitical entity for appx 125 yrs.

I don't know where she got all this, but it's an odd mixture of good info and crap. The ending -ski is simply an adjectival ending used in most of the Slavic languages, not just Polish, and has no implications whatsoever regarding nobility.

Now it is true that surnames in the form X-owski generally originated in Polish, and started out as names of nobles, where the X part was the basic root of the name of their estate. So if you find SKOMOROWSKI in a document from 1400, it certainly refers to a "lord of Skomorow" or some similar place name. But by the 1600s, peasants were beginning to use surnames, too, and they often used X-owski names. So by, say, 1700, a SKOMOROWSKI wasn't necessarily "lord of Skomorow," he could just be "one from Skomorow." It's been centuries since the ending -owski, much less -ski, was a reliable indicator of anything about a family's social status.

I wasn't able to pin down exactly what place name this surname refers to. Prof. Rymut's book says SKOMOROWSKI may refer to Skomorochy in Grabowiec district, Zamosc county, Lubelskie province (in southeastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine). He wasn't certain, but it was plausible from a linguistic standpoint. As is so often true with Polish surnames, even ones referring to place names, the only way to be sure what place the name refers to is to trace the family history. Often there's more than one place with a name that qualifies, so have to figure out where your ancestors lived to be able to pick the one most likely to be relevant. Also, sometimes names of places and people changed over the years, which could explain how SKOMOROWSKI might refer to a place called Skomorochy. (You wouldn't normally expect that guttural -ch- to just disappear when the -owski ending was added. But I can't suggest any better derivation.)

You can see a Website with data on the frequency and distribution of this name in Poland as of 2002, and a map illustrating the data, here:

Geograficzny podziaе┌ nazwisk "Skomorowski" w Polsce ╩ Moikrewni.pl

But note that it only gives data for the masculine form, To get the complete picture, you also need to refer to the page for the feminine form, SKOMOROWSKA:

Geograficzny podziaе┌ nazwisk "Skomorowska" w Polsce ╩ Moikrewni.pl

The name tends to show up scattered all over, so it's not easy to tell from this data where it originated. It could refer to Skomorochy, and over time the people bearing the name scattered. The name of the place Skomorochy comes from a noun skomoroch, which also exists in Ukrainian as скоморох; in both languages it means basically "clown, buffoon, jester." This surname could conceivable mean "of the kin of the clown/jester." But by and large, X-owski names usually do refer to the names of place beginning with the X part.


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