# Surname Derszak: Slovak or Czech?



## Dasak

My last name is Derzsak but sadly I don't know much about my fathers side considering him and his father didn't have that great of a relationship. There are no other Derzsaks in America other than my family. I can't find anything on the Internet about my name and it doesn't translate to anything in Czech or Slovak I would really like to know which one I am because at the time when my great grandparents moved to America they moved from Czechoslovakia at the time. I was just wondering if anyone could shed some light on my name. 

Outside of them being from czechloslovakia I know no other information sorry.


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## iezik

The last name was probably spelled some other way in Czechoslovakia. The middle /erzs/ could be /řž/, so the name would be Držák what translates to /holder/ from Czech. But I don't see any such surname. You can search for similar Držak, Deržak, ...

One page claims the spellings Deržak, Derzak, Derzsak, Deržák, Derzak, Derzsak for surnames in village Bajerov in east Slovakia.


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## Dasak

Thank you very muchI'll have to keep looking into it to find out more


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## DarkChild

Dasak said:


> Thank you very muchI'll have to keep looking into it to find out more



If they came through Ellis Island, you can check the archives there.


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## Ben Jamin

Dasak said:


> My last name is Derzsak but sadly I don't know much about my fathers side considering him and his father didn't have that great of a relationship. There are no other Derzsaks in America other than my family. I can't find anything on the Internet about my name and it doesn't translate to anything in Czech or Slovak I would really like to know which one I am because at the time when my great grandparents moved to America they moved from Czechoslovakia at the time. I was just wondering if anyone could shed some light on my name.
> 
> Outside of them being from czechloslovakia I know no other information sorry.


The spelling suggests Hungarian origin (Der-zs-ak), where "zs" is pronounced as "s" in "pleasure". May be  it is a hungarized Slavic name.


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## vianie

_Držák, držiak_ means *holder* indeed, from _držať_ - *to hold*. As the Eastern Slovak dialects don't have the syllabic r and long vowels/diphtongs, the name is stylised _Derzsak_, with non-palatal D. This spelling with zs is a relict of the Hungarian rule times, the Slovak one would look _Deržak_.


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## bibax

Derzsak (Deržak, Deržák) is not a Czech surname. There is only one *Deržák* and 3 *Deržáková* (feminine form) in the Czechlands (according to the official register), probably one family. They all live in Přeštice near Plzeň. They probably came from Slovakia (see post #2 and #6). Milan Deržák (50-year-old) was also registered in the trade register, his address is: Husova 1046 (=street and house#), Přeštice, PSČ 33401 (=zip code), Czech Republic.


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## prst

iezik said:


> One page claims the spellings Deržak, Derzak, Derzsak, Deržák, Derzak, Derzsak for surnames* in village Bajerov in east Slovakia.*



Ellis Island passenger search shows some results when searching for OP's surname (_Derzsak_)

Among them is one from Bajor, which seems to be the Hungarian name of the same village, Bajerov in eastern Slovakia.


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## oveka

Українською Derzsak /ДЕРЖАК/ - це Helve.
http://www.nomer.org/allukraina/


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## Ben Jamin

I have seen that the spelling of the name oscillates in the thread between Derzsak and Derszak. It seems that the author himself is not quite sure what is correct.
It is maybe the same for English speakers, but the first spelling is Hungarian, and the second is Polish. The first corresponds to pronunciaton /derʒak/ and the second to  /derʃak/. If the origin is Slovak then the Hungarian spelling is easy to explain, if it is Ukrainian then the Polish spelling could be a good match.


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## bibax

Where have you seen Derszak? The OP is quite sure - Derzsak (Hungarian spelling), Держак (Ukrainian, Russian), Deržák/Deržak (Czech/Slovak), etc.

The title of the thread is a moderator's mistake (the original title was: "Slovak or Czech?").

So ДЕРЖАК /derzhak/ is also a Ukrainian (Ruthenian, Rusyn) surname. You can find many ДЕРЖАКs in Ukraine (see link in #9).

Carpathian Ruthenia (now in Ukraine) was a part of Czechoslovakia before the WWII.


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## Azori

There's an online database reflecting the frequency of surnames in Slovakia in 1995, but it's probably not complete (and if I'm not mistaken, the surnames are listed per a single residence and thus not for all persons). Anyway, according to it:
Deržák - 33 occurrences, out of which 22 were in eastern Slovakia (the Košice and Prešov districts), 3 in central Slovakia (all of them in Banská Bystrica) and 8 in Bratislava (western Slovakia)
Deržáková - 26 occurrences - 19 in eastern Slovakia (the Košice and Prešov districts), 1 in central Slovakia (Banská Bystrica) and 6 in Bratislava

Deržak - 4 occurrences - in the Prešov district in eastern Slovakia
Deržaková - 3 occurrences - in the Prešov district as well

No results for Derzsak or its feminine form.


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## Ben Jamin

bibax said:


> Where have you seen Derszak?



In the title of the thread.



bibax said:


> The OP is quite sure - Derzsak (Hungarian spelling), Держак (Ukrainian, Russian), Deržák/Deržak (Czech/Slovak), etc.





bibax said:


> So ДЕРЖАК /derzhak/ is also a Ukrainian (Ruthenian, Rusyn) surname. You can find many ДЕРЖАКs in Ukraine (see link in #9). Carpathian Ruthenia (now in Ukraine) was a part of Czechoslovakia before the WWII.


A corruption to *Derszak*  if the family came from "Polish Ukraine" is not impossible. Names wer very easily corrupted in older times. I have relatives with different spelling of their name in a close family (brothers).



bibax said:


> The title of the thread is a moderator's mistake (the original title was: "Slovak or Czech?").


How could I know?


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