Gacek
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. nickname from gacek ‘bat’ (the animal)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 15 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈɡa.t͡sɛk/(recorded in a dictionary) Polish · from Wiktionary
Gacek is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country.
- PLPoland1 in 6.3K(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 232K
- ARArgentina1 in 242K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Poland (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 93 (measured from records)
- 1 in 6.3K (inferred from the name graph)
6,087 people, 2026
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Poland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)1. nickname from gacek ‘bat’ (the animal). 2. from a pet form of Gac.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Gacek counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | #656 | 6,087 | 1 in 6.3K | 3.1K | Gacek | 93 |
| US United States | — | 872 | 1 in 381K | 906 | Gacek | 66 |
| AR Argentina | — | 188 | 1 in 242K | 188 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 642K | 34 | Gacek | 31 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈98 est. | ≈1 in 422K | — | Gacek | 14 |
| SK Slovakia | — | ≈60 est. | ≈1 in 91K | — | Gacek | 5 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈50 est. | ≈1 in 108K | — | Gacek | 3 |
| FI Finland | — | 24 | 1 in 232K | 24 | — | — |
6,087 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames), 2026. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Mikuláš Gacekb. 1895HUMikuláš Gacek * 10. 7. 1895 , Budapešť (Budapest) , Maďarsko (Hungary) † 22. 1. 1971 , Dolný Kubín (Dolný Kubín) , Slovensko (Slovakia) writer sex: male
- Elżbieta Łucja Gacekb. 1938PLjudge
- Adam Gacekb. 1949PLArabist from Poland
- Urszula Gacekb. 1963PLPolish politician
- Katarzyna Gacekb. 1966PLPolish writer
- Daniel Gacekb. 1971PLPolish association football player
- Piotr Gacekb. 1978PLPolish volleyball player
- Anna Gacekb. 1981PLmusic journalist
- Katarzyna GacekPLPolish researcher
- Łukasz P. GacekPLPolish political scientist
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)24 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 3.1K | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 3.1K | #766 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 3K | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 3K | #800 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 906 | #28,052 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 872 | #27,604 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 804 | #28,049 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 188 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 34 | #64,689 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 24 | #40,514 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Gacek come from?
- 1. nickname from gacek ‘bat’ (the animal). 2. from a pet form of Gac. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Gacek?
- In Polish /ˈɡa.t͡sɛk/ (Wiktionary).
- What does the name Gacek mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. nickname from gacek ‘bat’ (the animal).
- In which country does Gacek have the most bearers?
- In Poland, the national register counted about 6.1 thousand people named Gacek, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gacek.
- Where is Gacek most common?
- Gacek is densest in Poland, where the national register counts about 1 in 6.3 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Gacek?
- In Poland, the national register counted 6,087 people named Gacek in 2026, about 1 in 6.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Gacek compared with other names?
- In Poland, Gacek is the 656th most common surname of 240,840 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gacek?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gacekThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Gacek” — the 656th most common surname in Poland. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.