Nazwisko (surname)
Polish surnames, like those in most of Europe, are hereditary and generally patrilineal, i.e., passed from the father on to his children.
A Polish marriage certificate lists three fields, the surnames for the husband, wife, and children. The partners may choose to retain their surnames, or both adopt the surname before marriage of either partner, or a combination of both; the children must receive either the joint surname or the surname of one of the partners, if they are different. However, a married woman usually adopts her husband's name and the children usually bear the surname of the father. The wife may keep her maiden name (nazwisko panieńskie) or add her husband's surname to hers, thus creating a double-barrelled name (nazwisko złożone). However, if she already has a double-barrelled name, she must leave one of the parts out—it is illegal to use a triple- or more-barrelled name. It is also possible, though rare, for the husband to adopt his wife's surname or to add his wife's surname to his family name (an example is businessman Zygmunt Solorz-Żak, who did both, taking his wife's name on his first marriage, and later appending his second wife's name to it).
A person may also legally change his or her surname if:
- it is offensive or funny;
- it is of foreign origin;
- it is identical to a given name;
- that person has effectively used a different surname for a long time.
The most widespread Polish surnames are Nowak, Kowalski, Wiśniewski and Wójcik.
Popular belief often associates surnames ending with sky/cky/dzky with Jewish Polish families and names ending with ski/cki/dzki with Christians, but the spelling differences sometimes have more to do with whether the name originated in Poland or in Russia. '-ski' names are preceded by a name of a town or a profession. (i.e. Kobyliński and Kucharski; from Kobylin and Kucharz(Baker))
Read more about this topic: Polish Name