New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesSzewnia
My paternal grandmother's last name was Szewnia. She was born in Polish-occupied Ukraine in 1925. When I was young, she told me it meant "swine" in Russian, so she always hated it.
Can you tell me anything about this last name and it's Ukrainian or Polish roots and meanings?
Thank you!
Can you tell me anything about this last name and it's Ukrainian or Polish roots and meanings?
Thank you!
1
Replies
Szewnia is a village's name in Lublin, Poland
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7664652
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7664652
1
I'll just say up front that I'm Polish and I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian.
I google translated swine into Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian and they're all similar to Polish świnia (pronounced something like svinya) I also had a look at synonyms and none of them seemed like they could be pronounced like "szewnia".
There's no one in Poland named Szewnia (I checked in the official database) only a village called Szewnia but I couldn't find anything about the history of this name.
Finally I transliterated it into cyrillic Шевня and it seems to be a Ukrainian surname which actual people still use so I doubt it's obviously derogatory. If you search Shevnia or Shevnya (so the same name just using English instead of Polish transliteration) you'll find people with this name.
I think it might have something to do with sewing because Шев means "seam" but someone speaking Ukrainian would have to weigh in. (It was also my first association because "szew" also means "seam" in Polish.)
I google translated swine into Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian and they're all similar to Polish świnia (pronounced something like svinya) I also had a look at synonyms and none of them seemed like they could be pronounced like "szewnia".
There's no one in Poland named Szewnia (I checked in the official database) only a village called Szewnia but I couldn't find anything about the history of this name.
Finally I transliterated it into cyrillic Шевня and it seems to be a Ukrainian surname which actual people still use so I doubt it's obviously derogatory. If you search Shevnia or Shevnya (so the same name just using English instead of Polish transliteration) you'll find people with this name.
I think it might have something to do with sewing because Шев means "seam" but someone speaking Ukrainian would have to weigh in. (It was also my first association because "szew" also means "seam" in Polish.)
1
Swine is свинья (svin'ya) in Russian. Szewnia is the name of two places in Poland and that's most probably where the surname comes from.
1