Names of Poland
ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland (their country)
The ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland (their country) include endonyms (the way Polish people refer to themselves and their country) and exonyms (the way other peoples refer to the Poles and their country). Endonyms and most exonyms for Poles and Poland derive from the name of the West Slavic tribe of Polans (Polanie), while in some languages the exonyms for Poland derive from the name of another tribe – the Lendians (Lędzianie).
Endonyms
The Polish words for a Pole are Polak (masculine) and Polka (feminine), Polki being the plural form for two or more women and Polacy being the plural form for the rest. The adjective "Polish" translates to Polish as polski (masculine), polska (feminine) and polskie (neuter). The common Polish name for Poland is Polska. The latter Polish word is an adjectival form which has developed into a substantive noun, most probably originating in the phrase polska ziemia, meaning "Polish land".
Rzeczpospolita
The full official name of the Polish state is Rzeczpospolita Polska which translates to "Republic of Poland". The word rzeczpospolita has been used in Poland since at least the 16th century. Originally it was a generic term used to denote any state with a republican or similar form of government. Today, however, the word is used almost solely in reference to the Polish State.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Names of Poland” as ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland (their country). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as ethnonyms for the Poles (people) and Poland (their country). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6961536. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Names of Poland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.