Comments on: The Mysterious Ways of Polish Surnames, part 2

By: Jero

Jero — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:00:45 +0000

I had a couple of polish friends that were getting married, they needed to write the invitations for the wedding and it was a big problem to find out how to decline the surnames, it seems that the surnames have an other form when you use it to refer to a married couple. Of course they wanted to write them correctly as otherwise it could be considered disrespectful, so they had to spend weeks looking in internet and asking people if they know how to decline them!

By: Iota

Iota — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:47:05 +0000

I’m not Ana, but…

1) You may refer to: http://www.transparent.com/polish/the-mysterious-ways-of-polish-surnames/

2) In nominative (the only way you’d use your potential Polish surname in English), the feminine ending is -ska. So:

Mr. Jan Kaliszewski
Ms. Anna Kaliszewska

Differentiation between women who are single and married no longer functions popularly in Polish. If necessary, a “maiden name, unmarried” version of a surname could be created by the ending -anka or -ówna (depending on the root surname).

The fact your mother-in-law uses “Kaliszewski” has probably lots to do with not wanting to explain Polish grammar to people. She just decided to ignore feminisation.

In short, by contemporary Polish standards married women should use the -ska form if their husband’s name ends with -ski.

By: Sue Wilson

Sue Wilson — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:17:09 +0000

Hello Anna! It’s me again! Please could you fill me in on the ending for married women’s surnames if husband is -ski? Quite keen to be Kaliszewska – though only if -ska is used by both single & married women. Thank you!

By: Sue Wilson

Sue Wilson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:54:07 +0000

Hi, I found your blogs about surnames really helpful & I am wondering if you can help me.
Is it common practice for a married woman whose husband’s surname is Kaliszewski to be Kaliszewska? My mother in law stuck with -ski yet addresses cards to her grand-daughters as -ska. Is the -ska only for single women or can married women use that form too?
I’m recently married to a Kaliszewski & as I am wife number 2 I’d quite like to use -ska to differentiate myself from wife number 1 who is Mrs K-ski. But obviously would not want to use -ska if that is associated with single women! I do appreciate the chaos that i will have by having a surname different to my wedding certificate but I’d quite like to follow Polish tradition with the feminisation of my surname if that is ok for married women to use!!
Many thanks!

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:48:24 +0000

Hi Marge!
Ladówna is a hard one. I’d say that the masculine form would be something like “Lada” or “Lado”, or possibly it could have mutated from “Ladek”, and someone wrote “Ladówna” instead of “Ladkówna”. Such mistakes were quite common back in the olden days.