My family and I are looking for any information involving my great-grandparents and the orgin of our family name. Our name is Martinec, but we do know it was changed when my Great-Grandfather came to the states in 1907. We have found the ship logs from when they and my great uncle came to ellis island and their last name was spelled Martinecz, also My grandfather told me it was spelled Martineczj. If anybody knows the meaning of our name or a website we could check it and/or any records of people, we would greatly appericate it. If this would help my Great-grandfather was named Andrej and GreatGrandmother was Anna (Kubas) from Prague. Thank You Aaron Martinec
Martinec is a common surname in Czech (Martinecz or Martineczj are just spelling modifications, caused probably by the use of Schwabacher type writing, widely used at the time of Austro-Hungarian monarchy) and it is a diminutive of the first name Martin.
And Martin is derived from Mars, a contracted form of Mavors or Mamers, probably an Etruscan word. So the origin of your surname is Etruscan.
Thank you for responding and the information about my name, would you know if there is any other common spellings for Martinec, I do know of a local family that spells it Martineck
Probably, Martineck was originally spelled Martínek; other surnames derived from Martin are e.g. Mára, Marton, Martinčík, Martinčák, Martinkovič, Martiňák, Martinský...
