The present paper describes changes that occurred in personal naming practices of Poles during World War II as a result of the German language policy enforced in pre-war Polish territories that was incorporated into the Third Reich. Based on the analysis of the turnover rate of the most frequent first names it is demonstrated that significant changes took place in the areas of pre-war Poland that were joined to the three provinces of the Third Reich - Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, the Province of Upper Silesia, and Reichsgau Wartheland. The paper discusses the nature of changes that occurred in particular regions as well as the way they were reversed in 1945.
In this article I deal with several toponyms with initial O(b)- (Oblonie, Oblas, Oblotne, Ochodza, Oblaz, Obierwia). In addition, whole groups of names related to them are also examined. I present existing and potential etymologies for the toponyms under discussion. My goal is also to obtain as wide an onymic context as possible from the whole Slavic linguistic territory, which allows drawing certain conclusions in the area of onomastic geography.
In this paper I deal with the most popular first names in Poland given to newborns in period 1995–2010. The first part contains lists of 100 of the most frequent male and female names. I have compared these lists with a similar sets for the earlier periods (1981–1990 i 1900–1994) compiled by K. Nowik. In the next part I present the detailed data for the naming variety in the examined period and with the help of the statistical calculations I show the increasing and decreasing trends for particular groups of names. It appeared that some names, which have similiar characteristics (such as sound, origin, structure), behave the same way, gaining or losing its popularity. In the last part I examined the geographic diversifications of names by comparing frequency lists for each voivodeship. In this case the study revealed the relationship between popularity of some group of names and the area of its appearance. It confirms that there is a regional specificity in naming in Poland and sometimes it crosses national borders.
The hydronym Szywra refers to the small river in the Warta basin flowing in the central part of Greater Poland. Although its name remained unclear for most of the researchers, it was believed to be of Pre-Slavic or Balto-Slavic origin. The paper reveals that these hypotheses were based on the wrong interpretation of the source material, and provides a new etymology for the name Szywra. Based on the critical analysis of all of the reachable records of names referring to the river Szywra, it has been proven that its Polish name is an adaptation of the former German name Schieferbach. Such a process was possible due to the long-term bilingual situation in the region of Greater Poland.