Could some one please help me. I am trying to help an 86 year young mother of a friend. She told me that Lenio was her maiden name. She said her father was born in Poland, but did not know where. She said the name was never changed. She also said she never thought that this sounded like a Polish name, and was curious about it. I thought I had Fred Hoffman's book on surnames, but either I am mistaken or I can not find it. I checked the Rymut site and found that the name is not common. Could someone please help me satisfy this lady's curiousity? Thank you Judy ************** Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with Tyler Florence" on AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4& ?NCID=aolfod00030000000002)

Judy, Hoffman's book does not have Lenio. It does have Len, Lenar, etc. Also has Leniart, Leniec Jim On May 30, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Bluetea54@aol.com wrote: > Could some one please help me. I am trying to help an 86 year > young mother > of a friend. She told me that Lenio was her maiden name. She said > her father > was born in Poland, but did not know where. She said the name was > never > changed. She also said she never thought that this sounded like a > Polish name, and > was curious about it. > I thought I had Fred Hoffman's book on surnames, but either I am > mistaken or > I can not find it. I checked the Rymut site and found that the > name is not > common. > Could someone please help me satisfy this lady's curiousity? > Thank you > Judy > > > ************** > Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with > Tyler Florence" on AOL Food. > (http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4& > ?NCID=aolfod00030000000002) > ********************************* > Need to contact the list manager? Write to Marie at Poland-Roots- > admin@rootsweb.com > ---------------------------------- > Discussion of Polish food, culture, and customs are welcome on the > list as long as the discussion stays pertinent to the topic of this > list: researching our Polish roots. > ---------------------------------- > Browse the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=poland-roots > Search the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?aop=1 > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to POLAND-ROOTS- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message jimpres1@mac.com

Judy, I typed in Lenio surname in google and got 634 hits. You might do the search as well. Jim On May 30, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Bluetea54@aol.com wrote: > Could some one please help me. I am trying to help an 86 year > young mother > of a friend. She told me that Lenio was her maiden name. She said > her father > was born in Poland, but did not know where. She said the name was > never > changed. She also said she never thought that this sounded like a > Polish name, and > was curious about it. > I thought I had Fred Hoffman's book on surnames, but either I am > mistaken or > I can not find it. I checked the Rymut site and found that the > name is not > common. > Could someone please help me satisfy this lady's curiousity? > Thank you > Judy > > > ************** > Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with > Tyler Florence" on AOL Food. > (http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4& > ?NCID=aolfod00030000000002) > ********************************* > Need to contact the list manager? Write to Marie at Poland-Roots- > admin@rootsweb.com > ---------------------------------- > Discussion of Polish food, culture, and customs are welcome on the > list as long as the discussion stays pertinent to the topic of this > list: researching our Polish roots. > ---------------------------------- > Browse the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=poland-roots > Search the list's archives here: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?aop=1 > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to POLAND-ROOTS- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message jimpres1@mac.com

Hi, Judy <Bluetea54@aol.com> wrote: > Could some one please help me. I am trying to > help an 86 year young mother > of a friend. She told me that Lenio was her > maiden name. She said her father > was born in Poland, but did not know where. She > said the name was never > changed. She also said she never thought that > this sounded like a Polish name, and > was curious about it. > I thought I had Fred Hoffman's book on surnames, > but either I am mistaken or > I can not find it. I checked the Rymut site and > found that the name is not > common. > Could someone please help me satisfy this lady's > curiousity? LENIO, pronounced roughly "LENN-yo," is not in my book because I only had room for about 30,000 surnames, and the 1990 database at http://www.herby.com.pl/indexslo.html has data on over 800,000 names. So I had to concentrate mostly on the more common surnames, using 300 as my arbitrary cut-off point -- and the 1990 data shows only 135 Polish citizens named LENIO. But that doesn't mean it isn't a Polish name. There were obviously hundreds of thousands of legitimate Polish surnames that I couldn't fit into my book without making it a 10-ton monster that would sell for roughly $35,000 a copy. By the way, the Moikrewni site uses 2002 data which is generally more accurate than the 1990 data. It also generates maps showing the frequency and distribution of specific surnames. LENIO is here: http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/lenio.html It shows as of 2002 there were 167 Polish citizens by that name, scattered in small numbers all over the country. As is usually the case, you can't really look at the data and say "Obviously my Lenios came from such-and-such a place." Only research into the family history might uncover facts that shed light on that question. I don't have LENIO in my book, but I do have an entry on names beginning Len-, and what's said there applies to LENIO. I quote Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut's book _Nazwiska Polakow_ [The Surnames of Poles], which does include LENIO and says surnames beginning Len- can come from the noun _len_, "flax," or from _len'_ with accented N, meaning "lazybones," or from short forms of the given names Leonard or Leon. So LENIO could have started as a nickname for "the flax guy," or "the lazy guy," or just "Len" as a nickname for a Leonard or Leon. There's no way to tell from the surname alone which derivation applies in a given case; only research into the family history might clarify that. I should add that surnames ending in -IO are not extremely common among Poles, though you do run into them. They tend to be a bit more common among the Rusyns, Lemkos, and other Slavs living in the area of southeastern Poland, northeastern Slovakia, and southwestern Ukraine. These people speak languages that are kind of like a cross between Polish, Ukrainian, and Slovakian -- many words and names are very similar to Polish or Ukrainian or Slovakian words. By and large, they use the Cyrillic alphabet rather than the Roman, so that the name LENIO looks kind of like this: JI E H I O The first letter looks like a J and I joined at the top, and it stands for the sound of L. The other letters look like ones we use, and in many cases the sounds are similar. The biggest source of confusion is H, which in Cyrillic stands for the sound we write as N. The name might also be spelled in a way that looks like this: JI E H b O If you go looking for more info on this family, you may very well find that you have to deal with the Cyrillic spellings. I've tried to indicate them here so that you'll recognize it if you see it. While I know less about Ukrainian and Lemko and Rusyn names than I do about Polish ones, the best info I have indicates that the derivation of the name LENIO in those languages is pretty about the same as for Poles. The words for "flax" and "lazy" are similar, and a short form of Leonard or Leon might also be relevant. Rymut's book usually tries to include "Polish" names that are borne by Poles but developed in other Slavic languages, and I think he did so here. I'd say LENIO is a name that can be borne by Polish citizens, but chances are good their roots lie in areas now in eastern Poland or western Ukraine. Strictly in terms of ethnic origin, a LENIO is more likely to be connected with Rusyns, Lemkos, and Ukrainians than with Poles. But as the data shows, there are people in Poland who go by this name. You may ask, "If names in the form X-io most often originated in southeastern Poland and the neighboring areas, why does the 2002 data on the Moikrewni site show some living in southeastern Poland, some in southwestern Poland, some in northwestern Poland, and some in northeastern Poland?" The answer is, after World War II, in 1947, there was a campaign called "Operation Vistula" [Akcja Wisla] that forced large numbers of people living in southeastern Poland to relocate to the west and north. This was done largely to uproot Ukrainians and others who were putting up violent resistance to the Communist government of Poland, often murdering ethnic Poles. There's more than one side to this story, and I can't do justice to them here; but you can find plenty of sites online that give you a better picture of what happened. A Google search for "Operation Vistula" will point you in the right direction. The point here is that these days, we often see names that clearly originated in the eastern and southeastern regions of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth scattered all over Poland, especially in the west. That usually turns out to be due to Operation Vistula. If we had comparable data from before 1947, we'd almost certainly see these names clustered in eastern Poland, western Ukraine, and so on. But we don't have such data, so we make do with what we have. In any case, researchers should not be misled if names they think are Ukrainian (or Rusyn, or Lemko, etc.) show up a long way from where you'd expect to see them. That's usually due to forced relocation after World War II. I think I've told you about all I can. I hope it's some help to your friend's mother. Fred Hoffman Author, _Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings_ www.fredhoff.com