Changes to Given Names and Surnames in the Years 1945–1950 in the Nysa Area in the Light of Archive Materials

Abstract

The shifting of the borders and the incorporation into the Polish state a territory that had, until 1945, been part of Germany led to the re-Polonization and Polonization of personal names. Given names belonging to the German cultural sphere, including those of saints recognized and revered throughout Poland, were replaced by Polish ones. German surnames, even those orthographically or phonetically adapted to the Polish language, also had to be changed. The change in given names and surnames affected not only the native Silesian population but also the influx of people arriving from various regions of the country and the Eastern Borderlands.