[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] SCHWOCHOW/marlo50

[Günther Böhm]

Otto schrieb:

>As to where it is, if this is correct, perhaps Guenther with his resources can help us out...
>Schwoch is a toughie..
>

Hello Otto & Margaret,
we aready discussed this matter in February:

> "Margaret,
> no, since Schwochow [Swochowo] was a village in the Pyritz district of 
> Pomerania (12 km northwest of Pyritz) and you can be sure that your 
> SCHWOCHOW ancestors came from there. It was founded before 1300. I 
> don't think that its name was originally German since the first 
> nobilized owners of Schwochow called themselves "von SCHWOCHOW". Later 
> owners were v.BORCK, v.der SCHULENBURG, v.PODEWILS, v.PUTTKAMER, 
> Freiherren v.der GOLTZ and v.KUNOW." 

and April:

> "Hello Margaret,
> there was a second village Schwuchow [Polish also Swochowo, Kashubian 
> Szwùchòwò], Stolp district in Eastern Pomerania which is more likely 
> the name-giving of your husband's ancestors and the eponymous medieval 
> mayor of Stolp though the other one is in Pomerania too. It should be 
> on the topographical map TK25 1568 Stolp."

But as to the name origin of both villages:
In general, the -ow suffixe indicates the genitive plural of a slavian 
[Polish, Kashubian] word, here of the name of a family or a profession 
or the entirety of the inhabitants, meaning "of the Schwoch-s".

In the www.herby.com.pl/herby/indexslo.html database, the surname SZWOCH 
is listed 427 times (no SZWUCH at all), centered in the late Gdansk 
[Danzig] wojwodztwo. There are 82 more SZWOCHA, again centered in the 
Gdansk wojwodztwo, 33 SZWOCHERT, Bydgoszcz [Bromberg] wojwodztwo,. 22 
SZWOCHER, Bydgoszcz wojwodztwo and 8 SZWOK, Gdansk wojewodztwo. So 
apparently the name SZWOCH or SCHWOCH was the origin. Maybe it derives 
from the Middle High German word 'swach', German 'schwach' [weak] which 
originally stood for 'schlecht, gering, unedel, niedrig, armselig' [bad, 
mean, ignoble, low, poor] but this mustnot indicate that the original 
inhabitants of the Schwochow / Schwuchow village were Germans resp. 
Poles or Kashubs! Maybe the German word 'schwach' was used by Kashubs 
like the huge number of German words in modern Polish, and the village 
name 'Schwochow' meant 'village of the mean'. But this again doesn't 
indicate that the inhabitants in later periods whom the village name was 
given (ot forced) as surname were ignoble or mean too. But again: the 
surname SCHWOCHOW definitely derives from the village name.

Günther