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From: "Thomas E. Lassek" <>
Subject: Re: [NEPLATTE] Re: The Sound of Confusion
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:16:03 -0600
References: <20050124.222916.668.28.grammagum1@juno.com>


"I noted the comment you made about families moving into an area and then if one particular name prevailed, the village would take it's name from that. In our
Polish GenSociety newsletter, each month, is an article, complete with background, usually taken from the Gazateer, of different villages. So, that would be about 120 villages that I have seen. It seems that most belonged to a wealthy family or one of nobility, but rarely were any of them named after the owner. It seems that most village names are descriptive of the locale or something about it. "

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The process of Zadruga didn't necessarily necessitate a village name change or an initial name for a new village. Some times it did, some times it didn't. In each case, I'm sure that practical realities of the day produced an acceptable identifier for the village or hamlet. Since 99.9% of all villagers were of the serf class, the village was always owned by the Nobility or rich Land Lords.

The probability that a village was named after the owner is almost zero, although I have seen such in the "Slownik geograficzny Kro~lestwa Polskiego i innych krajo~w sl~owian~skich" (Geographical dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic countries) by Filip Sulimierski, Bronisl~aw Chleborski, and Wl~adysl~aw Walewski.

Villages and hamlets were considered commodities of wealth by the Polish 'upper crust' of the feudal society. As such, they were sold, traded and sometimes given to others at marriage. When a Noble was deposed, his land and wealth were dispersed amongst other Nobles and Land Lords according to the practicalities of the day. The old civil notorial records are full of litigation proceedings concerning the ennobled - a constant fight to maintain their wealth. These records are the first genealogy records of the Nobility - their proof and evidence of social status and property acquisition.

It appears to me that by far, most villages and hamlets followed the same central theme as do surnames, that is to say, from verb roots, food, feature's, item's, occupational need, persons, sounds, growing things and so forth. The village of Rybowo is based on the presence of fish in the area (Ryb = fish), Poznan from the Slavic "Pozd", meaning "late".

Several years ago, I decided to research one of the 6 "Lasek" villages known to me in Poland. It's located a bit South of Poznan and is probably considered a suburb today. I called for the LDS record and to my utter horror, there were no Lasek surnames present in the village !! I was dumbfounded. Researching more, I eventually found that the village was named such due to it's proximity to an adjacent forest. LAS means "forest" and "ek" means "small or little". The village was formed next to a small forest.

Tom Lassek
Eufaula Alabama



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