Talk:Zuba

Tea Room discussion re the etymology of the Polish surname

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Zuba

Anyone here clued up about Polish onomastics? If so, can you shed any light on the etymology of this Polish surname, please? Apparently, it's nominal, rather than adjectival, which is supposedly unusual for Polish surnames. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 16:15, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Zuba (using Czech or Ukrainian phonetics) from ząb. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Stephen: Thanks! So, Zuba means "tooth", yes? If so, is this etymology correct? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 23:06, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that’s right. Or you could also add the information about Czech and Ukrainian. If Zuba had been derived by Polish speakers, it would have been Zęba, but it was made by Czech or Ukrainian speakers who did not know how to write Polish vowels. —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I added more details to the etymology. --WikiTiki89 23:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Stephen, Wikitiki: Thank you both. I've looked at the declensions of all the descendants of the Proto-Slavic *zǫ̑bъ (“tooth”), and they all have genitive singulars ending in -a / -а apart from the Czech zub, whose declension table states that its genitive singular is zubu; @Dan Polansky, can you confirm whether or not the information given by that declension table is correct, please? It would make sense that Ukrainians coined this surname — given that the guy I know who has this surname is from Stalowa Wola and that the only person with this surname I could find an article for on Wikipedia, Maria Zuba, is the Member of the Sejm for Kielce — but why, Stephen, do you say that it was coined by Ukrainians or Czechs? Could it not just as plausibly have been coined by White Russians (зу́ба), Sorbians (zuba), Russians (зу́ба), Yugoslavs (zuba, зуба), or Slovaks (zuba)? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:45, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter that the genitive is zubu in Czech, since it could easily have been "corrected" in Polish. Linguistically, there is no reason it couldn't have come from any of the languages you listed, but realistically it likely came from one with which Polish has a lot of contact. The surname itself might even have been coined in Polish, just using a borrowed stem. --WikiTiki89 15:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: I told the guy I know (henceforth “Mr Zuba”) that his surname derives from a Slavic word meaning “of a tooth”, but he was incredulous, maintaining that “it [sc. his surname] means nothing”. Unfortunately, I don't feel I currently have much evidence with which to convince him of your and Stephen's theory. For example, if the name had been coined by Czechs, is there any early (pre-“correction”) evidence of this surname being spelt *Zubu? (Alternatively, the Czech declension table may simply be wrong, which possibility seems more likely once you consider that it's generated by the code {{cs-decl-noun|zub|zubu|zubu|zub|zube|zubu|zubem|zuby|zubů|zubům|zuby|zuby|zubech|zuby}}. Since Dan Polansky is yet to tell us whether or not it's correct, I ping @Auvajs, Droigheann, Jan.Kamenicek, JanSuchy, Jklamo, Mormegil, Silesianus — the other members of Category:User cs-N with contributions since the beginning of 2016.) How do I convince Mr Zuba? Where and when did his surname first occur? Was it applied, as a nickname, to someone with big teeth? Or perhaps just one tooth? Or sarcastically to someone toothless? Or does “of a tooth” have a more figurative sense here, perhaps with “tooth” signifying martial prowess in some way? Is there grammatical evidence for his surname's origin in a genitive singular form of a common noun in its indeclinability? Or, if Zuba does now decline, was there a time when it was indeclinable? I would appreciate any evidence, citation, and/or argument you could provide to which I might have recourse in my conversations with Mr Zuba. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the Czech genitive zubu is correct. There is no hard evidence that this last name must come from the word "tooth", but it is almost a certainty that it comes from something, whether its bearers are aware of it or not. "Tooth" is just our likeliest theory. --WikiTiki89 02:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, I did just come across the last name Ząbkowski, which clearly comes from ząbek (diminutive of ząb) + -owski (forming last names). --WikiTiki89 02:23, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, the Czech genitive of zub is indeed zubu, although as pointed above, zuba is the genitive in Slovak. That said, I fail to see why this should have anything to do with a Polish surname. I can't think of a Czech surname which would be a common noun's genitive except where the noun denotes persons, presumably ancestors, e.g. Matějů/the Mathews', Kovářů/the smiths' &c. --Droigheann (talk) 06:38, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Although I think that there can be a connection with the Czech word "zub", it is not certain. The genitive "zuba" would be possible in Czech only if the word was considered to be animate (inanimate genitive is "zubu"), which could happen after it started to be used as a surname, but I doubt that the surname Zuba was formed in such a strange way. I do not think it is possible to find out the etymology of the word without the knowledge of its historical usage and historical forms. By the way, nowadays only 4 people in the Czech Republic have such a surname (see [1]), so it might not be a Czech surname at all. The fact that the words Zuba and zub are surprisingly similar does not have to mean that they have common etymology. I can also imagine that it was derived from a different surname like Szuba (though also not very probable). --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Zuba is a fairly common surname in two Polish provinces, w:Województwo świętokrzyskie and w:Województwo podkarpackie (Subcarpathia). The provinces are adjacent to one another and border on the Ukraine and Slovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia). The idea that it might be Czech is due to the earlier name of Slovakia. So it is more likely from Ukrainian or Slovak, not Czech. The Slovakian genitive of zub is zuba. Mr. Zuba is mistaken...all names originally meant something. The meaning behind Zuba is that it originally was a nickname for someone with a prominent or noticeable tooth. Even though it’s a genitive form, it does not mean "of a tooth." It’s just that the genitive is a common way to form a surname. It just means "the Tooth." The Polish surname probably originated in Subcarpathian province, and a Polish citizen of Slovakian or Ukrainian heritage probably wrote it as Zuba. —Stephen ^(Talk) 15:46, 12 January 2016 (UTC)