name finishing by -sky

[catherine]

Hello, My family name is Braslavsky, from Kiev. Recently, someone told me that all people having a name finishing by sky (or ski) came from Poland. Does someone has some clue about this. I gueesed that Braslav was probably coming from Braslaw in Poland, or Braslav, close to Kiev, as for Nahman of Braslav. Would someone know something about this too ? Thanks

[yakimicki1]

i don't believe that the 'sky' or 'ski' or whatever ending means its polish. I have a Ukrainian History book that has lots of prominent figures way back into uke history that have that ending on thier name. I believe that it means 'belonging to'. Sorta like "Johnson" ,, son of john, etc.

[Hussar_]

the ski ending in east slav lands means 99% its polish if its sky its ither east slavizized from polish ski or if its sky from like 1500 century it may be east slav surname...
the only other slav people who use the -ski is macedonians almost 90% of them use -ski cause they where among thee slavs that lived closest to polish tribed before migration to south balkans...Braslawski is polish surname there lived 101 persons with this surname in poland...mostly live in west poland cause many poles was deported or killed in ukraine during and after ww2....today there about 250.000 poles that consider as poles in ukraine and millions with polish ancestry in ukraine..specialy in west ukraine and zaphori cossacks..

http://www.herby.com.pl/herby/

-ski in polish history was used as noble mark...but not all ski surnames are noble some aded the ski in 1800 and 1900 century cause it looked better to have noble -ski...u can look up ure surname in some sites that have polish noble asociations...

http://www.eticomm.net/~mzapx1/surname.htm
http://www.polishroots.com/genpoland/surnames.htm
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/nati...bliography.htm
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....hsurnames.html
http://www.pgsa.org/
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art691.asp
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb..../meanings.html
http://www.szlachta.org/heraldry.htm

[Zbyszek]

Just for better understanding, I would like to add that gramatically -ski(also -cki, -dzki etc) is used to make an adjective from a noun base.
Examples:
Polak [a Pole] - polski [Polish]
Rusin [a Ruthenian] - ruski[Ruthenian]
Ukrainiec[a Ukranian] - ukrainski[Ukrainian]

Aniol [angel] - anielski[angelic]
Diabel[devil] - diabelski[diabolic]

dabrowa[oakwood] - Dabrowski
kowal[smith] - Kowalski
jezioro[lake] - Jezierski
kamien[stone] - Kami[e]nski

I gave some Polish examples but I believe it is all similar for many Slavic languages.

Braclav [near Kiev] used to be a name of a provincial town in Rzeczpospolita times. Consequently the province was called
wojewodztwo braclawskie - Braclaw voivodship.

voivodship - historic name of a province, derived from
voi- a knight
and
wodz - a leader.

Now, I will use some imagination to play a litle and explain braclav[bratslav]
brat [a brother] + slav [glorius, glory] = glory to brother
another example: Boguslav {a Slavic name)
Bog [God] + slav [glory] = glory to God



[Edited by Zbyszek on 9th February 2004 at 09:48]

[Hannia]

Catherine,

At the turn of the century and throughout the Great Migration Era (1900-1914), immigration clerks and ship clerks followed certain formats when transliterating certain Slavic surnames.

If the passenger indicated that he/she were of Polish ethnicity, then SKI was the unwritten rule applied to any surname w/such suffix. If passenger indicated that they were Russian or Ruthenian, then SKY was used.

This also applied to Jewish passengers. At that time for the purposes of travel, Jewish/Hebrew was also considered an ethnicity. However most Jewish surnames with SKY suffix can be traced to 16th/17th century Poland, frequently via places like Belarus and Lithuania today.

I am writing in generalities, so it is easier to comprehend the world our ancestors lived in. For a more detailed orientation read some history books. Central Europe is a fascinating world historically. I frequently wonder how the populace managed in the midst of all the commotion and constant change.

[Hussar_]

jews from belarus,ukraine,russia are all jews who came with poles they where polish-jews thats why ukraines hated and killed so many jews...jews where money lenders and tax collectors to poles...and nobody likes tax....if jews has -sky its cause east slav use this...all jews in east slav lands are from polish asosciation they spoke polish and where in polish sejm etc....before russians ocupation 1772-95 there was no jews in russia they wasnt even alowed to live in moscow......but when they take polish commonwealth jews came as pakage...

[Hannia]

Several of you have e-mailed me re Hussar's previous post here.

Hussar's acrimonious posts are based on irrational values & cannot be changed by discussion or logic.

Confronting him in this forum w/his hate mongering towards Ukrainians is counterproductive. It is best to leave things lie.







[Edited by Hannia on 28th February 2004 at 13:48]