ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1905 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1905 ************************************ 24 Jan 2000 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a late 14th century Polish woman. Here is what we have found. We believe your name is perfect for your period. We've found several 15th century Polish examples of or [1]. is the correct feminine form of the masculine byname , which means "from Grzybow". is a place name derived from "mushroom"; there are several places of this name scattered around modern Poland [2, 3]. We found the feminine name recorded in 1402 [1]. Your name would have been pronounced \EHV-ah gzhi-BOHV-ska\, where \zh\ represents the sound of the in . You mentioned that you'd found your name spelled , and you wondered what that was. We're pretty sure it's a genitive form of [4]. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Walraven van Nijmegen and Talan Gwynek. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 24 Jan 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Taszycki, Witold (ed.), _S{l/}ownik Staropolskich Nazw Osobowych_, 7 vols. (Wroc{l/}aw: Polska Akademia Nauk, Zak{l/}ad Narodowy Imienia Ossolin/skich, 1965-1987), s.nn. Ewa, Grzybowska. [2] Hoffman, William F., _Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings_, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Polish Genealogical Society of America, 1997), p.261. [3] _Euro-Atlas: Poland_ (Maspeth, NY: American Map corporation). [4] Bielec, Dana, _Polish: An Essential Grammar_ (London & NY: Routledge, 1998), pp.106-107. The genitive case is the most frequently-used case in Polish. It corresponds to the English possessive (e.g. ) but has a wide variety of other grammatical uses with no close English parallels.