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Updated January 30, 2024

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Polish (also Łaska) and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from Polish łaska, ‘grace’, ‘favor’, or from a homonym meaning ‘weasel’. As a Polish name, this is a nickname; as a Jewish name it is generally ornamental.
  • Polish : from laska ‘stick’, ‘walking stick’, metaphorically a nickname for a tall, thin man.
  • Czech (Moravian; Laška) : from a pet form of Lád, a short form of the personal name (V)ladislav (see Laszlo).
  • Czech and Slovak (Láska) : nickname from láska ‘love’.
  • Hungarian : from the Slavic loanword laska ‘pastry’ (probably a metathesized form of Slovak lokša or Ukrainian lóksa), hence a metonymic occupational name for a pastry cook. In Hungarian laska also denotes a type of mushroom, and in some cases the surname may have arisen as a nickname from this sense.

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