Polish Surnames: Most Common Names, Meanings and Endings
Polish surnames are family names whose most common form is Nowak, held by about 198,000 living people, followed by Kowalski and Wiśniewski (PESEL register, January 2026). Adjective-type surnames change with gender, -ski for men and -ska for women, while noun-type names like Nowak stay the same.
Polish surnames (nazwiska) are led by Nowak, carried by about 198,000 living people in Poland, followed by Kowalski and Wiśniewski. Many Polish surnames end in -ski or -cki and change to -ska or -cka for women, so Mr. Kowalski’s wife or daughter is Mrs. or Ms. Kowalska. Others, like Nowak and Wójcik, are the same for everyone. Type any surname into the tool above to see how it is pronounced.
The most common Polish surnames
Poland publishes official counts of surnames from the PESEL population register as open data. The table below uses the release dated 20 January 2026, which covers living people with a PESEL number (dane.gov.pl). Men and women are counted separately, because most of these names have two forms.
| Rank | Surname (male / female) | Men | Women | Hear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nowak | 98,387 | 99,738 | |
| 2 | Kowalski / Kowalska | 66,589 | 67,308 | |
| 3 | Wiśniewski / Wiśniewska | 53,079 | 54,177 | |
| 4 | Wójcik | 47,734 | 48,568 | |
| 5 | Kowalczyk | 46,994 | 48,264 | |
| 6 | Kamiński / Kamińska | 45,818 | 46,723 | |
| 7 | Lewandowski / Lewandowska | 44,466 | 46,268 | |
| 8 | Zieliński / Zielińska | 43,931 | 44,578 | |
| 9 | Woźniak | 42,550 | 43,066 | |
| 10 | Szymański / Szymańska | 42,412 | 43,451 | |
| 11 | Dąbrowski / Dąbrowska | 41,552 | 43,316 | |
| 12 | Kozłowski / Kozłowska | 36,244 | 36,866 |
The top of the list barely moves. In a February 2021 announcement, the Ministry of Digital Affairs reported the same leading names, with 203,120 people called Nowak at the time (gov.pl). The female list is ordered slightly differently in 2026: Dąbrowska ranks tenth among women, ahead of Woźniak. The full files list more than 400,000 different male surnames and 420,000 female ones.
Polish surnames for men and women
Surnames that work like adjectives change with gender. The main pairs are:
- -ski / -ska: Kowalski, Kowalska
- -cki / -cka: Wysocki, Wysocka
- -dzki / -dzka: Zawadzki, Zawadzka
Surnames that work like nouns, such as Nowak, Mazur or Kowalczyk, stay the same for men and women. Older Polish had special forms for wives and daughters, such as Nowakowa (Nowak’s wife) and Nowakówna (Nowak’s daughter). You will meet them in old documents and novels, but they are now rare in everyday use.
Surnames also change with grammar. A family is państwo Kowalscy (the Kowalskis) or państwo Nowakowie (the Nowaks). “With Jan Nowak” is z Janem Nowakiem, but “with Anna Nowak” is z Anną Nowak: a woman’s noun-type surname does not decline at all. This explains why the same family can appear with several endings on one wedding invitation.
Double-barreled surnames are common too. When people marry, each spouse can keep their own surname, take the other’s, or join both with a hyphen, as in Kowalska-Nowak. Polish practice allows no more than two parts, so someone who already has a double surname must drop one before adding another. Each part follows its own rule: the -ska half changes for a woman, and the noun half stays as it is.
What Polish surname endings mean
The -ski ending is adjectival and originally meant “of” or “from” a place, much like German “von”. From the Middle Ages it was typical of the nobility, but in the nineteenth century many ordinary families took it too, so it says nothing reliable about ancestry today. A Dąbrowski was once linked to a place called Dąbrowa, from dąbrowa, an oak wood.
Other endings are about family. -wicz and -owicz mark a son or descendant, as in the surnames of the writers Adam Mickiewicz and Henryk Sienkiewicz. -czyk, -ak and -ek are diminutives that often meant “son of” or “apprentice of”. Many surnames name a job or a trait:
| Surname | Root word | Meaning of the root |
|---|---|---|
| Kowalski | kowal | blacksmith |
| Kowalczyk | kowal + -czyk | the smith’s son or apprentice |
| Nowak | nowy | new: a newcomer |
| Wójcik | wójt | village head |
| Krawczyk | krawiec | tailor |
| Mazur | Mazowsze | someone from Mazovia, the region around Warsaw |
| Król | król | king |
| Zając | zając | hare |
How to pronounce Polish surnames
Polish spelling is regular, so surnames that look hard follow the same rules as every other word. The stress falls on the second-to-last syllable, w is a v, sz is sh, cz is ch and rz is like the s in “pleasure”.
| Surname | Sounds like | Hear |
|---|---|---|
| Kowalski | koh-VAHL-skee | |
| Wiśniewski | veesh-NYEF-skee | |
| Wójcik | VOOY-cheek | |
| Woźniak | VOZH-nyahk | |
| Szymański | shih-MAHN-skee | |
| Dąbrowski | dom-BROF-skee | |
| Lewandowski | leh-vahn-DOF-skee | |
| Krawczyk | KRAHF-chik | |
| Grzybowski | gzhih-BOF-skee |
The most famous tongue-twister surname, Brzęczyszczykiewicz, comes from a 1969 Polish comedy film, where a hero spells it out for his bewildered captors. For a full set of rules, see how to pronounce Polish names; the nasal ą in Dąbrowski is explained on the Polish letter Ą page, and the w sound on the Polish letter W page.
Polish surnames abroad
Emigrants to the United States, Canada and the UK often lost their diacritics on arrival, so Wiśniewski became Wisniewski and Dąbrowski became Dabrowski. Some families adjusted the spelling to match English sounds, or kept the spelling and adopted an English pronunciation. If you are researching family history, search for both forms. When writing to relatives in Poland, use the original letters; our guide on how to type Polish characters shows how.
Common mistakes with Polish surnames
- Using the male form for a woman. Write Anna Kowalska, not Anna Kowalski.
- Adding -ska to noun-type surnames. Mrs. Nowak is Nowak, not Nowaczka or Nowakowska.
- Dropping diacritics in official documents. Wójcik and Wojcik can look like different people to a computer.
- Pronouncing -ski as “sky”. It is closer to “skee”.
- Reading w as English w. Kowalski is ko-VAHL-skee.
For first names and nicknames, continue to Polish names.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common Polish surname?
Nowak. In the PESEL register as of 20 January 2026 it was held by 98,387 men and 99,738 women. Kowalski/Kowalska is second.
Why do Polish surnames end in -ski?
The -ski ending is an adjective form that originally meant ‘of’ or ‘from’ a place. It was once typical of the nobility but spread to all classes in the nineteenth century.
Why do Polish surnames change for women?
Surnames ending in -ski, -cki and -dzki are adjectives, and Polish adjectives agree with gender. So Kowalski becomes Kowalska. Noun-type surnames like Nowak do not change.
What does Kowalski mean?
It comes from kowal, blacksmith, through the -ski ending, often via a place name connected to smiths.
How do you pronounce Polish surnames?
Stress the second-to-last syllable and read the letters by Polish rules: w = v, sz = sh, cz = ch, rz = zh. So Wiśniewski is veesh-NYEF-skee.
Sources
- dane.gov.pl: Nazwiska osób żyjących występujące w rejestrze PESEL (data as of 2026-01-20)
- Gov.pl, Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji: Nowak znowu pierwszy (10 Feb 2021)
- Wikipedia: Polish name