Heaney

The name Johaska comes from a tribe which used to dwell in the South-East of Poland.

-IAK Essentially, the suffix -iak is the same thing as -ak; both are diminutive suffixes, but -iak differs only in that it involves softening or palatalization of the root's final consonant. Thus in some names we see -ak added directly to a root with no palatalization, e. g., Nowak, Pawlak; and in others we see the palatalization, e. g., Dorota + -iak = Dorociak, Jakub + -iak = Jakubiak, Szymon + -iak = Szymoniak.

The basic meaning of -ak/-iak is diminutive, but especially when applied to first names, it tends to have a patronymic significance. Thus "Jakubiak" means "little Jakub," but much the same way as if someone saw me walk by and said "There's Fred" (Fred's my middle name and it's the one I go by, I hope this isn't too confusing!) and then a moment later my son toddled along and he said "There goes little Fred," i. e., "Fred's son." So in most cases where -ak/-iak is appended to the root of a first name we can translate it as "son of." However, it's not used exclusively in that way, for instance there is a noun "Krakowiak" which means "one from Krakow." Polish suffixes rarely have one and only one meaning (unfortunately; life would be much easier if they did!).

I'm not sure why sometimes the suffix is added with palatalization and why it's not. No doubt Polish linguists have addressed this very question, and somewhere in my sources there is probably a learned article on this very subject. But I can't find it at the moment -- and besides, to make sense of it one would probably need a Ph.D. in Slavic historical linguistics. I think it suffices for our purposes to say that the suffix can be added either way, without palatalization (Pawel + -ak = Pawlak) or with it; and if it's added with palatalization, that is indicated either by interposing an -i- (Jakub + -i- + ak) or by modifying the root's final consonant (Dorota + -ak to Doroti- + -ak to Doroci- + -ak = Dorociak). There are ways to tell which final root consonants add -i- and which change the letter, but again, this is probably more information than you want!