Native Polish surnames, just as surnames of other Slavonic
nations, can be roughly divided into three main groups: - those
derived from original nicknames, as names of animals, trees,
things, professions, - those derived from the Christian name or
profession of the father (patronymics) - those derived from
names of towns, villages, regions etc. (toponymics) This may
appear simple, but in many cases it is nearly impossible to
determine if a given surname is derived from the name of a
profession or from the name of the village which has this
profession in its root. The surnames derived from names of
professions can be treated as members of either of the above
groups. The Slavonic languages use many suffixes to form
surnames. As an example let's look at the profession "Kowal" (a
smith). Whereas the English language has one surname "Smith",
and the German several of them, "Schmitt", "Schmidt" etc. (which
differ only by spelling), the Polish language can add numerous
suffixes (sometimes even several on the same na