The Plesz name

The only way I'm ever going to get the word out that there are people in the world with the surname of Plesz looking to find out more about the origin of the name, is to blog about it (again). Yes, I know - there are countless genealogy sites out there devoted to this, but they disappointingly have no information on my surname at all.

So, I'll try to tell the story as best as I can barely remember it as told to me by my departed Opa (grandfather). He said our heritage is based in an area of Europe that over time was always becoming part of another country. This makes the area at the corner of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic a prime candidate for the origin of the name. He said the name originated with the spelling Plac.

A couple years' back I found a site called World Names Profiler. You simply enter your surname and find its origin and density on a world map. The site has been compiled by researchers from the University College London.

According to the site's data, my name is Polish, but its highest concentrations are in Hungary and Austria. Poland and Canada are almost a tie for 3rd in current concentrations of the name. Now, according to my late Opa, the evolution of the name went from Plac to Plas, to Ples to Plesz. Ples is predominant not only in Hungary and Austria, but also Slovenia. So perhaps the name's heritage is Slavic.

If anyone out there knows anything about the roots of this surname, I would appreciate any information you have.