Customer Reviews

Dictionary of American Family Names: 3-Volume Set

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Dictionary of American Family Names (DAFN) is a major work by Patrick Hanks. It contains circa 70,000 surnames from the United States, showing their origin and meaning.
As US is a melting-pot of nations so there are (in US) surnames of the whole world: Europe (whole), Jewish, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, East Asia. The introductory portion of the book describes surnames of particular nations, languages and cultures.
I think that the idea of writing DAFN was very interesting, namely mentioning surnames of US, it (DAFN) mentions surnames of the whole world. That is why I've bought DAFN.
As a matter of fact I've got "A Dictionary of Surnames" by Patrick Hanks - 1988 edition, but DAFN is more up-to-date. Besides both dictionaries may be complementary to one another.
Very important is a contribution to a DAFN by many contributors and consultants of the whole world.
Patrick Hanks wrote to me 25.02.2008 among other things: "The consultant for Polish names was Professor Aleksandra Cieslikowa of the Institute for the Polish language in Krakow, who did a magnificent job."
Of course I made sure of credibility of DAFN in the field of Polish surnames. I compared DAFN to Polish Dictionary of surnames in respect of etymology and went well!
Finally, I think Patrick Hanks is a leading authority on world names.
Radoslaw Zielezinski (Poland)

So far in the names that I have been looking up in my family tree I have found that these three books have most of it. Sometimes I have to look around to find a surname similar to mine to see if mine is off some. Only a few names have I not been able to find in here.