How it works

Where the figures come from

The counts come from the surname lists of the PESEL register, which Poland's Ministry of Digital Affairs publishes on dane.gov.pl.

The PESEL register publishes two separate surname lists, male and female. We show each figure on its own and never add them up.

Every figure is shown with its dataset and the date it describes.

Rarity

“1 in X” means that roughly one in every X people on this list has this surname. The bigger X, the rarer the name. The rank counts from the most common surname on the list.

Each 1-in-X is computed within its own dataset. The datasets are different sizes, so these two figures are not compared with each other.

Voivodeships

The map and the list show the voivodeships where people with this surname have a registered permanent address. The brighter the colour and the longer the bar, the bigger the share.

Shares are of the people with a registered permanent address, not of everyone with the surname. A voivodeship the dataset does not list is not zero.

Meaning

We give a meaning only when a scholarly work supports it. We don't guess.

When sources read a surname differently, we show every reading side by side and do not decide between them.

How certain

Every statement carries one of these words. The word says how certain the statement is. Rights to the data decide only where something may be shown — never how true it is.

• Verified
• Likely
• Possible
• Unconfirmed
• Sources disagree
• Insufficient data

No data is also an answer

The PESEL lists leave out surnames that only one person has. A surname missing from the list may be very rare; it does not mean nobody has it.

What we do not do

• We do not identify ancestors or family relationships.
• We do not assign a nationality, a religion or a coat of arms to a surname.
• A shared surname does not mean a shared family.

Sources

At the foot of every surname page are all of its sources, each linked to the website the data was taken from, with notes on how to read the figures.