SURNAME ENDINGS

Polish nouns and proper names have seven cases, both singular
and plural, both male and female, all with different endings.

Names like Herszkowicz, earlier denoted "son of" for males,
 "owna" for single females (i.e. Herszkowiczowna" for Miss Herszkowicz),
 and "owa" for married females.
Genitive cases ended in
 "a" for males, (i.e. Herszkowicza, of Mr. Herszkowicz),
 "owney" for belongings to Miss Herszkowicz
   (variant spellings: "owny" or "owney" or "ownej"),
 "owej" or "owey" for married women.

Plural for a family is Herskowicze or for a whole clan
or large group Herskowiczowcy.
Genitive for family is Herszkowiczow, i.e. of the family Heszkowicz.
Note that the "o" in the endings has an accent over it and
is pronounced "oo" as in "food".

There are many other endings, such as
the dative "owi" (to Mr Herskowicz),
"o Herszkowiczach" (about the family Herszkowicz), etc. etc.