Zak is a surname. It can be related to both Żak, a Polish surname, and Žák, a Czech surname. However, in the case of Jews, it can be a variant of the German surname Sachs, the patronymic variant of the Hebrew biblical male personal name Yitzchak/Isaac, or it can originate in the acronym surname Za'K, which stands for the Hebrew words Zera Kodesh, literally meaning 'Holy Seed', a quotation from Isaiah 6:13 implying descent from martyrs. In the variant Zaks, the final letter of the acronym can make the phrase Zera Kodesh Shemo, 'his name descends from martyrs', or it may refer to the town of martyrdom, such as Speyer, Zera Kodesh Speyer, or Stendal.[1]
Notable people with the surname
editNotable people with the surname include:
- Anna Zak (born 2001), Israeli social media personality, model, and singer
- Eugeniusz Zak (1884–1926), Belarusian artist also known as Eugene Zak
- Frankie Zak (1922-1972), American Major League baseball player
- Fyodor Zak (born 1949), Russian mathematician
- Gershon Zak (1913-1989), Commander of the Israeli Navy
- John C. Zak (born 1954), American director, producer, and filmmaker
- Leocadia I. Zak, Director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency beginning 2009
- Paul J. Zak (born 1962), American neuro-economist
- Peter Zak (born 1965), American jazz pianist and composer
Fictional characters
edit- Piotr Zak, a fictional 'Polish composer', who featured in a famous BBC broadcasting hoax in 1961
- Rowena "Randy" Zak, a pre-teenage girl from the Girl Talk (books) series
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "BHS". Archived from the original on 2016-10-31.
This page lists people with the surname Zak.
If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.