the meaning of surname PUSKAS
the surname of one of the best Soccer player of the
Sixties. The star of REAL MADRID. the hungarian Ferenc Puskas.
I wonder what is the meaning of his name...
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Please note that the Hungarian PUSKAS is heard exactly as Polish PUSZKASZ and PUSZKARZ or near the English PUSHKASH.

So, if there is a Polish word Puszkarz meaning "gunsmith" or "gunman", then it is probable that the Hungarian family name PUSKAS is borrowed from Polish.
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Puszkarz does mean 'gunsmith, gunner', but also 'maker of boxes'. I think this meaning may be the older. In German, Buechse means both 'box' and 'rifle'. In Dutch, bus has the same two meanings. So there does seem to exist a link between 'box' and 'gun'.
Given the similarity between 'Puszk' (the -arz ending denotes an occupation) and Latin 'Pyx(-is, late Latin Buxis)' I think it is reasonable to conclude that this name derives from a Latin word for box.
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Sorry for the length ...found on one of the links to this page ...I think it's relevant ...

None of my sources specifically mention the derivation of this name, but I looked in an extensive 8-volume Polish-language dictionary I have, which was recommended to me by Polish scholars as a good source of information on terms that often became surnames. It mentions a noun pus~lednik as a different way of spelling po~l~s~lednik (accent over the O, slash through the L, accent over the S), which would be pronounced almost exactly the same way. That noun means "a farmer or peasant who works a 'half' farm." In Polish po~l~ means "half," so this is a "half-farmer."

What that means needs a little explanation. Originally Polish peasants were allowed by nobles to work land that belonged to the nobles. A full-sized farm was one that was big enough to supply food for a family for a year. The size varied from place to place, but that's what a "full farm" was. However, as time went on and property was split among descendants, what began as a full-sized farm might become two half-farms, or 4 quarter-farms, and so on. A po~l~s~lednik was a peasant who owned or worked a "half-farm" -- not one quite big enough to support a family by itself, but still much more land than many peasants had.

Now Pos~lednik (a more common name, borne by 500 Poles as of 1990, with the largest number by far, 267, in Leszno province) probably comes from a different word, pos~lednik, meaning "one who comes after; descendant." However, it can sometimes also mean the same thing as Pus~lednik. Probably the only way to find out for sure which meaning is relevant in a given family's case is through detailed research into their history, which might turn up some information that would shed light on this question.

There are other words in Polish that mean much the same thing, such as po~l~kmiec~ and po~l~rolnik. The fact that Pus~lednik and Pos~lednik are most common near Leszno province makes me wonder if it was a tendency for people in that area to prefer these terms, instead of the others? I don't know, but it does seem likely, in view of the fact that the surnames Pos~lednik and Pus~lednik are most common in that area. This might be a good indication that your family is likely to have come from that area originally.

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The best I can do from searching various Slavic name sites is that it may be derivative of the word 'pious' ...

Can anyone do better ...I hope!
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His family name is an abridgment: He was born Ferenc Purczeld, but when nationalism swept Hungary in 1935, German ancestry was not a good thing to have. But still, Puszkasz seems to be a genuine Hungarian name, though I don't know what it means... Perhaps it is a borrowing from Polish after all: it resembles Puszkarz, a surname that means 'gunsmith'.
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But the surname is hungarian not polish. the two languages, polish an hungarian are completely different. Hungarian like finnish are different from all other european languages!
That's why I think is a very interesting language to learn but unfortunately to difficult:

Some Hungarian surname I know and the meaning:

NAGY : Great
Horvath: Croat
Kis: Short
White: Feher
Nemeth: German
Russian: Orosz
Petofi: son of Peter
Buda; from a name of a Place
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