Modern Polish Patronymic Surnames (with Suffixes such as -icz, -owicz/-ewicz) of Armenian Origin

Abstract

The main topic of this article are modern Polish patronymic surnames (with the suffixes -icz, -owicz/-ewicz), whose origins can be pointed to, or are owed to, Armenian lexemes (the author also encompasses Armenianised anthroponyms which are hereditarily foreign). The first Armenians‑who used the Kipchak language‑arrived in Polish lands in the 14th century. During the 18th century, in the South-Eastern Borderlands, a new Armenian wave of migrants arrived; the newcomers used to communicate in a dialect which belonged to the Western Armenian group of dialects. The Slavic surroundings they found themselves in (Polish and Ruthenian-Ukrainian) gradually influenced the Armenian anthroponyms: both Kipchak lexemes and Armenian patronymic suffixes were modified with Slavic patronymic suffixes. In this article, there are presented 57 anthroponyms (contained in 25 dictionary entries) which originate from, or may come from, Armenian proper nouns.