This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

Re: Origins?
Woloszyn
Polish spelling of a Ukrainian and Jewish ethnic or regional name for someone from Wallachia. Compare Voloshin. Voloshin
Ukrainian and Jewish (from Ukraine): ethnic or regional name from Ukrainian voloshin ‘person from Wallachia’.Not positive, but my suspicion it derives from the same Germanic root that gives us the word "Wales" ...meaning "foriegner" ...From Wikipedia ...Name
The name Wallachia, generally not used by Romanians themselves (but present in some contexts as Valahia or Vlahia), is derived from the Valachs - a word of German origin also present as the Slavic Vlachs - used by foreigners in reference to Romanians (see also: History of the term Vlach).For long periods before the 14th century, Wallachia was referred to as Vlashko by Bulgarian sources (and Vlashka by Serbian sources). The traditional Hungarian name for Wallachia is Havasalföld, or literally "Snowy Lowlands" (the older form is Havaselve, which means "Land beyond the snowy mountains"). The name Ungrovlahia ("Hungarian Wallachia"), mostly used in an Orthodox Church context to refer to the Metropolitan seat, denotes the neighbourhood position in regard to the Hungarian Kingdom, meaning "Wallachia near Hungarian Kingdom". In Ottoman Turkish and Turkish, Eflak, a word derived from "Vlach", is used.
vote up1vote down

Replies

To add ...Vlach
from Vlach ‘Italian’, ‘Romanian’, or ‘Wallachian’. This vocabulary word originally meant ‘foreigner’; it is cognate with German welsch meaning ‘Latin’ or ‘Romance-speaking’, and ultimately with Old English wælisc ‘foreign’ and modern English Welsh. At the time when surnames were formed, the Czech word was applied chiefly to Italians, but also to Romanians.
from a pet form of any of various personal names beginning with Vla-, for example Vlastislav or Vladislav.
vote up1vote down