FLORCAK is roughly pronounced "Floor-chock," with the first part very similar to our english version of "floor". Florczak is moderately common by Polish standards, with the largest numbers in central Poland, especially the cities of Lodz (647), Zgierz (498), and Warsaw (338). Click here to see the map.

Professor Kazimierz Rymut, a noted authority on Polish surnames and their origins, says the name appears in Polish records as early as 1685 and it developed from the given name Florian. Florian, while rare in english is fairly common in Polish. The name Florian comes from the Latin root "florus" or "flowering" and may have originally expressed the parents hope that a child would flourish. Florian appears in Polish documents as far back as the 13th century, and Flor appears as a short form of Florian as early as 1400.

The surname Florczak would have started out meaning son of Flor or kin of Flor. The -czak ending can be a patronymic "son of" or it can consist of the diminutive -ak added to the name Flor to form form such names as Florek, Florak, Florka or Florko. So the name Florczak can likely be translated as Child of Flor.

In other words at some point in time there was a guy named Flor and he had some children and in order to keep them associated with his particular family line, gave him a name like Piotr for example, and added the ending -czak to his first name and gave the child the surname Flor-czak to form Piotr Florczak or Piotr the son of Flor.

The Polish Surname CHMURA is pronounced H'moor-ah where the H is actually more of a Ch sound as heard in the last part of the German word Bach.

Professor Kazimierz Rymut mentions the surname Chmura in his
book “Nazwiska Polakow” (The Surnames of Poles).
In this book he tells us that the name Chmura shows up in Polish records as early as the year 1438 and that it literally means “Cloud” or “Gloom”.
Some experts have suggested that it may originally been given as one’s nickname to a person born on a dark or cloudy day or to perhaps someone with a gloomy or dark disposition.

In 2002 there were 7,683 Polish citizens named Chmura and it is most often
found in the southeastern part of the country, especially in the areas in and around Dabrowa Tarnowska (372), Przeworsk (285), Krakow city (267),
and Mielec (221).
One look at the surname map found here will tell us all we need to know about the location and frequency of the name Chmura.

KOMOROWSKI sounds like “ko-more-OAF-skee” and Komorek is pronounced roughly "ko-MORE-eck."

Komorowski(a) is a moderately common name in Poland borne by 6,062 and 6,546 Polish citizens, respectively. Of those, 257 Komorowski(a)’s lived in Kutno powiat in which Ostrowy is located, the village where my great grandmother Maryanna was born.

The late Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions these names in his book Nazwiska Polakow (The Surnames of Poles). The basic root of both Komorek and Komorowski is presumably the noun “komora”, which means “chamber room” and in older Polish terms "treasury". Perhaps the name referred to one who collected taxes or rent in the village, or one associated with a chamber or room of some sort.

The ending -ek is diminutive, so Komorek could have been a nickname meaning "little chamber" or "the little chamber guy" or even "son of the chamber guy." Some names beginning with “Komor” actually come from variants of “komar” meaning mosquito (I would prefer to think that it is not the latter).

Names from a common root are typically linked semantically and often different forms all mean more or less the same thing, "kin of Komorek or Komorowski”. At one point, Maryanna and her ancestors were known as Komorek but later went by Komorowska. There is likely to be no deep meaning or significance to the change because most Poles did not read or write and would address people by their first names and/or a nickname.

Professor Rymut also writes that Komorowski(a) can often refer to the name of a specific place or village and can be derived from either from “komora” or “komar”.

At last count there are at least 40 villages in Poland with the names Komorow and Komorowo so determining where the Komorek’s from our Family line originated would be difficult to do. Whatever the case, I will continue my research into all Family surnames and maybe one day the exact origin of Komorowski name will be revealed, …stay tuned.

Many thanks to Fred Hoffman for providing most of the content and analysis of the surname Florczak and Chmura.

A List of Surnames that appears within the Genealogy

Ranked by Frequency of appearances (ctrl F to find your name)