Family name origins & meanings
- Polish (Polański) : ethnic name for a Pole, or more specifically for a descendant of the Polanie, one of the original Polish tribes.
- Polish, Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic), Ukrainian, and Belorussian : topographic name for someone who lived in a clearing, from polana ‘glade’, ‘clearing’ (a derivative of pole ‘field’), or a habitational name for someone from placed called Polana, Polanka, Polany, or any of various other places named with polana.