Novák

Novak (in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene), Novák (in Hungarian, Czech and Slovak), Nowak (in German and Polish) is a Slavic name, both used as a given name and surname, derived from the word for "new" (e.g. Polish: nowy, Czech: nový, Serbo-Croatian: novo) meaning something similar to "new man", "newcomer", or "stranger" in English. The name was often given to a new arrival in a city or a convert to Christianity. It was also used for newcomers to an army and as an occupational surname for people who used the slash-and-burn method to create new arable land—novina. It is pronounced almost the same way in most languages, with the stress on the first syllable. The main exception is Slovene, which places the stress on the last syllable.

It is the most common surname in the Czech Republic,Poland, and Slovenia, and the sixth most common in Croatia. It is also found in Romania and Moldova in the form and among Ashkenazi Jews in various forms depending on their country of origin.

The surname is usually spelled Novák in Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian, Nowak in Polish, Novak (Cyrillic: Новак) in Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, and Novac in Romanian. In Germany, the most common orthography is Nowak, with German "w" pronounced as English "v". Many Americans with the surname Nowak have Anglicized it to Novak or Novack.

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