Slavic heraldry, and Polish heraldry above all, works differently from the English model. In Poland a coat of arms, called a herb, belonged to a heraldic clan rather than to one family, so dozens or even hundreds of unrelated noble families could share the same arms, such as Leliwa or Ostoja, and one surname can turn up under several different herbs. Russian noble arms were collected in the General Armorial ordered by Emperor Paul I in 1797. In the Czech lands, burghers as well as nobles received grants of arms, and Ukrainian nobles and Cossack officers adopted crests under strong Polish influence.
Poland: one coat of arms, many families
The clearest summary of the Polish system comes from the author Lech Paszkowski, quoted in an introduction published by the Polish Genealogical Society of America: “Whereas in Western Europe a coat of arms belonged to a person or family, in Poland a family or a person belonged to the coat of arms.” Some families bore arms of their own, but many, sometimes hundreds, shared a single herb.
Named arms and war cries
Polish arms have names, taken from old battle cries (in Polish zawołanie, in Latin proclamatio). Well-known examples include Leliwa, Topór, Lis and Jastrzębiec. Most nobles knew what a coat of arms looked like from its name alone. Leliwa, for instance, is blue with a gold crescent beneath a gold six-pointed star.
Same herb, different surnames, and the reverse
Polish surnames were often taken from estates, which produced two puzzles for later researchers:
- One family, many surnames. The 16th-century armorist Bartosz Paprocki describes the Rościszewski family: the branch that settled at Chrapunia became Chrapuński, the one at Strykwina became Strykwiński, and the one at Borków became Borkowski. All kept the same arms.
- One surname, different herbs. Because many villages had the same name, unrelated families ended up with identical surnames. There was a Konarski family of the Jastrzębiec arms and an unrelated Konarski family of the Awdaniec clan.
Polish arms also passed to all legitimate children, sons and daughters alike, without the cadency marks used in England (compare our guide to English heraldry).
A large nobility
Arms were the mark of the nobility (szlachta), and Poland’s nobility was unusually large. By one estimate there were about 25,000 noble families in the 16th century, some 6.6% of the population, rising to about 8% by 1791, when nobles in Western countries averaged only 2–3% of the population. The group grew through adoption too. At the Union of Horodło on 2 October 1413, forty-seven Lithuanian boyar families were adopted into the same number of Polish clans and allowed to use their arms.
Why a “Polish family crest” is different
Put all this together and the usual question, “What is the coat of arms for my surname?”, needs rephrasing. The right questions are: was my family noble, and if so, which herb did this particular family use? Some practical points:
- Most families were not noble. Even at 8%, the great majority of Poles had no herb. A surname that appears in an armorial may also have been carried by unrelated non-noble families.
- Use the herbarze. Polish armorials, arranged by surname, record which herb each family used. The classics are Paprocki’s Herby rycerstwa polskiego (1584); Kasper Niesiecki’s armorial (4 volumes, Lwów, 1728), re-edited by Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz in 10 volumes (Leipzig, 1839–1845); Adam Boniecki’s Herbarz Polski (1899–1913), which reached only the letter M because the unpublished volumes were destroyed in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944; and Seweryn Uruski’s Rodzina (1904–1938).
- Beware of borrowed arms. As early as 1601 the Sejm (parliament) passed a law protecting surnames and arms, and in 1633 it threatened usurpers with loss of noble rank. Even so, some families that had lost track of their own arms simply adopted those of another family with the same surname.
- The partitions cut deep. After Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria, nobles had to prove their status to the new governments. Only about one in five of the pre-1795 nobility succeeded in registering, and in the Kingdom of Poland the Heraldry Office (Heroldia) confirmed the pedigrees of 84,500 nobles between 1836 and 1861.
For more on judging a coat of arms you are offered, see how to verify a coat of arms and what is a family coat of arms?
Russia: service nobility and the General Armorial
Russian noble status was tied closely to state service. On 24 January (4 February) 1722 Peter the Great approved the Table of Ranks, which divided military, civil and court service into 14 classes. Anyone who reached the 8th class became a hereditary noble. The Table lasted almost two hundred years, until it was abolished in 1917.
Arms for these families were collected in the General Armorial of the Noble Families of the All-Russian Empire (Obshchiy gerbovnik), begun in 1797 at the order of Emperor Paul I and compiled under the supervision of Prosecutor General Alexander Kurakin. Part 1 was approved on 1 January 1798 and announced as published in June 1799. Printed by the Senate press, ten parts appeared by 1840 (part 10 was approved in January 1836); parts 11 to 16 were compiled but not printed in that series.
Through the partitions, the Russian Empire also took in many families of the old Polish-Lithuanian nobility, who had to prove their status to Russian officials. Many could not: in the provinces of Kiev, Podolia and Volhynia, the number of nobles fell from 410,000 to 70,000 between 1831 and 1853. If your ancestors came from these lands, their family may appear in Polish armorials, in Russian records, in both or in neither.
Czech lands: grants of arms to burghers
In Bohemia and Moravia, heraldry reached well beyond the nobility. Grants of arms (erbovní listiny), issued by rulers and by other authorised issuers such as counts palatine, went to nobles, to newly ennobled families and to erbovní měšťané, armigerous burghers, as well as to towns, guilds and church institutions. Czech archives hold many of these illustrated documents, and Czech historians have published inventories and editions of them, including the grants held by the Prague City Archives. Czechoslovakia abolished nobility, orders and titles by an Act of 10 December 1918 (No. 61/1918), shortly after independence.
Ukraine: princely signs, Polish influence and Cossack crests
Ukrainian heraldry has deep roots. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, crests of some princely and boyar families date back to the 10th century, and family crests were already widespread among the nobility of Galicia-Volhynia. From the 15th and 16th centuries Western heraldry, particularly in its Polish form, shaped Ukrainian practice, and Ukrainian nobles in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth appear in early Polish armorials such as Paprocki’s. In the 17th and 18th centuries many officers of the Cossack starshyna adopted crests, often with military motifs, and in the late 18th century many starshyna and older noble families sought recognition of their arms from the Russian imperial authorities.
Across the Slavic world, then, the first step is the same: trace the family before looking for the arms. Our guides on how to trace your surname origin and whether names were changed at Ellis Island will help with the American end of the story, and heraldry by country compares these traditions with the rest of Europe.
See the arms recorded for your surname →
Sources
- Piotr Pawel Bajer, “Polish Nobility and Its Heraldry: An Introduction”, Polish Genealogical Society of America: https://pgsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/PL-Nobility-Heraldry-Intro.pdf
- Kasper Niesiecki, Herbarz polski, ed. J. N. Bobrowicz, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1839), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/herbarzpolskipow02niesuoft
- François Velde, “Right to Bear Arms”, Heraldica: https://www.heraldica.org/topics/right.htm
- Presidential Library (Russia), “Peter I approved ‘The table of ranks'”: https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619004
- Presidential Library (Russia), The General Armorial of the Noble Families of the All-Russian Empire, begun in 1797: https://www.prlib.ru/en/item/706878
- University of Ostrava, introduction to Nobilitas in historia moderna vol. 4 (edition of grants of arms): https://katedry.osu.cz/khi/nhm/publikace/NHM%20IV%20uvod.pdf
- Czech Parliament digital library, print 2795 (1920), amending Act No. 61/1918 of 10 December 1918 on the abolition of nobility, orders and titles: https://psp.cz/eknih/1918ns/ps/tisky/t2795_00.htm
- Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, “Heraldry”: https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CH%5CE%5CHeraldry.htm
Frequently asked questions
What is a Polish herb?
A herb is a Polish coat of arms, and the word also means the heraldic clan that bears it. Unlike Western Europe, where arms belonged to a person or a family, in Poland a family belonged to a coat of arms, and many unrelated noble families, sometimes hundreds, could share one herb such as Leliwa or Ostoja.
Does my Polish surname have a coat of arms?
Only if your particular family belonged to the nobility (szlachta) and used a herb. The same surname can belong to families of different herbs, and many surnames were never noble at all, so you need to trace your own line and then look it up in the armorials (herbarze).
How many people in old Poland were nobles?
Far more than in most of Western Europe. By one estimate there were about 25,000 noble families in the 16th century, some 6.6 percent of the population, rising to about 8 percent by 1791.
What is the Russian General Armorial?
It is the official armorial of the noble families of the Russian Empire, begun at the order of Emperor Paul I in 1797. Its first part was approved on 1 January 1798 and printed by the Senate press, and ten parts were printed between 1799 and 1840.
Did Czech burghers have coats of arms?
Yes. In the Czech lands grants of arms were issued not only to nobles but also to burghers, as well as to towns, guilds and church institutions, and many of these documents survive in Czech archives. Noble titles were abolished in Czechoslovakia by an Act of 10 December 1918.