I'd like to thank Milt Sniegowski for the picture of the Sniegowski Coat of Arms. He has spent numerous years researching the name.
The Shield is: Azure, a sword argent, overall a horseshoe of the last.
Translation: Azure (blue) symbolizes Truth.
The Crest is: A demi-vol sable, pierced by an arrow argent.
Origin: Poland
Variant spellings of Sniegowski: Sniegocki and Sniegowicz.
There were 808 Poles named S~niegowski, with the largest numbers (over 50) in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (56), Konin (122), Poznan (190), and Szczecin (65). The ultimate root of this name is clearly s~nieg, "snow," but names ending in -owski usually come from a place name, so in this case we'd expect the name means "person from S~niegi, S~niegow, S~niegowo," something like that. I can't find any places with likely names in my atlas, but that probably suggests the places involved were too small to show up on maps, or have since changed their names -- not at all uncommon. If your research leads you to a specific area of Poland and you find mention of a place named S~niegi or S~niegowo nearby, chances are good that's the place this family got its name from.
Snieg- {item, object} < snieg, "snow"; Snieg (891, Sniegacki (-), Sniegocki (941), Sniegon (220), Sniegowski (808), Sniegucki (248), Sniegula (419), Sniegula (307, cmp. Sniegula, "snow bunting"), Sniegulski (148), Snierzewski (1), Snierzko (2), Snierzynski (48), Sniezek (1315), Sniezko (494), Sniezynski (201), Snigorski (48), Snigucki (21).
Note: Numbers in parentheses show how many Polish citizens bore that particular surname as of 1990, according to the Slownik nazwisk wsp�lczrsnie w Polsce uzywanych.
Sources: Family Heritage Shop
Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings
William F. "Fred" Hoffman
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