# Bessowie



## bigodim

Hello, my question would have to do with the polish language as well as with a bit of history and geography: my name is Bessow, and I am trying to find out its origin. Is it polish, jewish, german? I understand that there is a small village in the south of Poland that is called "Bessów", and I wonder if anyone knows if the name hails from there? I have read a couple of webpages I googled, but since I can't read polish it's kinda hard for me to get things straight. By reading this page: 

w.w.w.pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bess%C3%B3w 

I got the impression the town got its name after the Bessi, a thracian tribe. "Bess" would be "bessi" and "ow" "the place of". Would this be correct? Reading this page 

w.w.w.racjonalista.pl/kk.php/s,4131 

(I coudn't understand much) I got the impression they were talking about the egyptian god "Bes". Also, has it anything to do with Saint Bessus?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Bessus

I understand that this may deviate from the grammatical nature of the forum, just thought I could get a good answer here since there are quite a few well read and cultured people here. Thanks.


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## Thomas1

Hello, 

It probably won't be of much help but just to let you know: from what I read on the second site you linked to, the content is about some Egyptian god.


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## bigodim

Thomas1 said:


> Hello,
> 
> It probably won't be of much help but just to let you know: from what I read on the second site you linked to, the content is about some Egyptian god.




Thanks! But did you notice that you can see the word "Bessów" on the title of that page? What does it mean? By reading the first page I linked don't you get the impression that "Bessów" comes from "Bessowie" (the Bessi)? Your help does help alot, thank you very much.


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## robin74

bigodim said:


> Thanks! But did you notice that you can see the word "Bessów" on the title of that page? What does it mean?


It's just the plural genitive of "Bessi". "Szlakami Bessów" means "On the trails of the Bessi"


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## Thomas1

I don't know about others but Bessi doesn't sound to me like a Polish surname. If it is a Polish name then it's quite rare. I have never heard it. That is not to say that it can't be of Polish origin, of course. The closest equivalent of it that sounds Polish-like to me is Besowski (I don't remember coming across it either).

I have done a quick search and found out that there is a place called Bessów in Poland and that it used to belong to the Besowski family. You can find more on that here (it's in Polish). Unfortunatley, I can't find more on the surname.


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## bigodim

robin74 and Thomas1: thank you very much for your answers!



robin74 said:


> It's just the plural genitive of "Bessi". "Szlakami Bessów" means "On the trails of the Bessi"



Thanks! But is the article talking about the Bessi, then, or is it about BES, the egyptian god? Or are they related?!


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## bigodim

Thomas1 said:


> I don't know about others but Bessi doesn't sound to me like a Polish surname. If it is a Polish name then it's quite rare. I have never heard it. That is not to say that it can't be of Polish origin, of course. The closest equivalent of it that sounds Polish-like to me is Besowski (I don't remember coming across it either).
> 
> I have done a quick search and found out that there is a place called Bessów in Poland and that it used to belong to the Besowski family. You can find more on that here (it's in Polish). Unfortunatley, I can't find more on the surname.



"Bessi" is the english word for "Bessowie", I think.  See here, then click on the english version of the article:

h.t.t.p://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessowie

I wonder if the "Besowski" are related to the "Bessów". I read once that the suffix "ski" means the son of, and "ów" from the place of. Is this correct?

P.S.: I named the thread "bessowie" because that was my original hint for the origin of the name.


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## robin74

bigodim said:


> I read once that the suffix "ski" means the son of, and "ów" from the place of. Is this correct?


No, it's not.
-ski is just an adjectival suffix and -ów is a possessive suffix, but it very rarely occurs in surnames (it's more typical for names of places). I don't believe Bessow is a Polish-origin name, for that matter, -ow is a typical suffix for Prussian names.


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## Marcus Africanus

It is not really Prussian, bacause the Prussian names of places are originally Slavic (like Storkow, Malchow, Pankow or Krakow am See - the "w" at the end you don't speak in German) but I did not find any place in Germany called Bessow nowadays and usually the surname comes from the place. What I found is a place called Bösau in Sachsen-Anhalt SW from Leipzig belonging to Großgrimma (Landkreis [county?] Weißenfels) and they say that Bösau was called in 1458 Bessow!
http://www.grossgrimma.de/html/geschichte.html (I hope You can read German)
Hope it helps


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## Marcus Africanus

There was really a name Besowski coat of arms Leliwa:
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leliwa_(herb_szlachecki)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leliwa_coat_of_arms


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