Why so many Kowalski-s?

Well, I'm actually polish. I hope I could provide some thoughts on topic.

First of all, for all polish speakers of my generation and generation before us, Kowalski is simply proverbial - like John Doe/Smith. It is commonly used in jokes: especially "Jaś Kowalski" or "Jan Kowalski" - although Jan is no longer so popular a name, and this combination sounds now rather funny or odd. It's the first surname to summon when you think about "The Common Name".

Furthermore, although there have been some reasonably known "Kowalskis"(and that's also why the name itself is popular), nobody REALLY famous holds this name. It has a kind of everymen, blue collar feeling to it.

Also, I'm not familiar with statistics but it might have happened so that it was a popular name among emigrants.

And, as you probably know, there are (by wikipedia) around 15-20 million people of polish ancestory outside Poland - which is enourmously lot comparing to its 38 million population! This is due to this country's disgusting habit of getting somehow involved in such events as: not being a country at all for 123 years, unsuccessful uprisings, world wars, holocaust, communist regime, having idiotic goverments, poor economy and other crap.

Therefore Poles are almost everywhere, and there's a hell lot of them in US. And I believe a vast share of this people is either called Kowalski or share my stereotypes on the "Kowalski" surname, which is: typically polish, common, sometimes a little bit funny, homely - a law-abiding, decent polish chap's name. A name you would give to some not utterly significant character in a movie.

So Jan is kind of like Bob in English? It (Bob/Robert) is not actually that common a name anymore, but still sounds totally generic.

I put a Kowalski in a story once He was actually in Poland, though.

I guess it might be. But I've heard than a name "Jan" is on a way back :) apparently a lot of toddlers/babies is named so lately.

[Sorry, new accounts cannot post external links.]

Do we have a trope for "if someone is from this country, their name will probably be X"? Because there are a few names for a few different countries I can think of ("Wong" for Hong Kong comes to mind, Ng or Nguyen for Vietnam, etc).

You see, somewhere between 1957 and 1960, when pro wrestling was still the most popular "combat sport" of the USA, a group of Canadians were in dispute with the National Wrestling Alliance over who was the World Heavyweight Champion. Of these "illegitimate" champions were Eduardo Carpentier and Killer Kowalski. The latter defeated the former and insisted himself the real world champion even after the president of the NWA publicly stated Carpentier's "victory" over Lou Thesz was illegitimate.

Using his fame as "world champion" Kowalski opened up a wrestling school, as those were becoming a fad, and trained such industry figures as Big John Studd, Perry Saturn, Frankie Kazarian, Triple H, Chyna, Damien Sandow, Kofi Kingston, Fandango and several others who don't have pages on this wiki but nonetheless became respected in their field, capturing the hearts and minds of those watching what was once the most popular combat sport in a country and still boasts the longest episodic television program the nation has ever produced.

For fifty years the Canuk known as Killer Kowalski used controversy to maintain a reputation which continues even after his death thanks to his students. These days pro wrestling isn't as popular, so a lot of people don't even know the man who made the name Kowalski synonymous with "badass"(or boastful ass, No Such Thing as Bad Publicity) but as said, the legacy endures(just as people don't necessarily know Masked Marvel, Gorgeous George, Karl Gotch, Buddy Rogers ect but still unknowingly channel them)

Edit: According to that other wiki, it was actually Buddy Rogers whom Kowalski had the illegitimate title win over. Point is he and Carpentier were part of a line of dirty Canadians sneaking their way into the world title picture.

edited 16th Jan '16 12:41:31 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

As to the ease of pronunciation: how people pronounced Agent Krzeminski's and Roland Przybylewski's names was atrocious. "Kowalski" is much simpler, and indeed very common.

There are a lot more people named Sekulovich in films that one would expect.

It's Karl Malden's birth name, and he managed to get it into the script of many of his films.