Surname

Bartoszek is basically the Polish name Bartocha with the diminutive suffix -ek added; when such suffixes are added, the final sound of the root often changes, and in this case the guttural ch sound changes to the "sh" sound of sz. So Bartoszek, pronounced roughly "bar-TOE-shek and is a very old Polish first name, which in some cases probably came from the Polish root barta, "battle-axe


As of 1990 there were 5,277 Polish citizens named Bartoszek, so it's a pretty common name. The largest numbers of them lived in the provinces of Kalisz (280), Katowice (1,050), Lublin (509), Lodz (369), Tarnobrzeg (260), and Zamosc (358); so it's most common in the southeastern quarter of the country. But you find people named Bartoszek in virtually every province.