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

Re: Jason Varitek
http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_endings.htm

well, the above link is about suffices in Polish names, but it also dealt with the suffix -ek and in Poland this means 'little' mostly, sometimes also used 'son of...', like the English junior is also meant to refer to a son of the person with senior behind his name. So, Janek means 'little John, son of John'. But i'm not sure if Varit is a firstname. I also tried Jelin(ek) and Vachous(ek), they're soccer players that i know of and they don't seem to be outstanding Czech-Slovak firstnames, so maybe they mean something else, like 'little house' or 'little town', just to name something. I'll get back to you about that.
vote up1vote down

Replies

well, Vachousek is a form of Vacek (like Janousek and Janek) and Vacek is from the firstname Venceslaus.

Jelinek means 'stag' (the bird) and this is to be seen as a nickname.

Varitek, i'm not sure about, but i used an online dictionary and some sites and found out it has something to do with cooking; the first component probably means 'to boil' or 'boiler' (found some sites about cooking and var is 'boiling point'). And i found out that the Samovar have their name from samo + varit, meaning 'the same' + 'to boil'. i'm not sure where the Samovar are from (i thought Russia, Siberia). though, samo means 'alone, self-' in Czech language, but one of the translations of the English the same was ten samy' . I guess Varitek means 'boiler' or at least it refers to a profession related to cooking.
vote up1vote down
another Red Sox name...if you're curious, the Dutch surname Remmerswaal is from the province Zeeland, where there was an island called Remmerswaal, that now is known as one of two 'drowned islands', because they are below sea-level nowadays and all the people that were living there had to leave. All people with this surname are believed to have one and the same ancestor, which is logical when you know how small the island was (not many people could leave there, say about five to ten families).
vote up1vote down
You sort of confused me with this one, are you referring to Jerry Remy ...I thought he was French-Canadian, coming from New Bedford and all ...
vote up1vote down
oh sorry, i just saw it in a glimpse, but now i've checked again and Win Remmerswaal was with the Red Sox from 1979-1980. I assumed that he played there now, because i was looking for Varitek, who plays there now too.
vote up1vote down
Thanks ...and I followed them back then, but barely remember the name ...
vote up1vote down