Brzeziński is a Polish surname erived from the root word "brzoza" ("brzez-" in some compound words), meaning "birch". The adjective suffix "ski" means "being like" or "belonging to", so Brzeziński refers to a person from one of the localities named for a concentration of birch trees, such as Brzezina, (a small village in Western Pomerania). In Polish, Brzeziński has an accent mark over the letter "ń". This produces a soft, rather than hard "ń", making the Polish pronunciation "bzhe-ZEEN-ski". The Brzeziński surname was originally borne only by the szlachta (the Polish noble class), but later spread to the working and peasant classes as well. It is known to be associated with both the Traby coat of arms (usually in the north) and the Labedz coat of arms (mainly in central and southern Poland). There were 25,361 persons with the name Brzeziński in Poland in 1990. The name has been borne by numerous notable Poles and persons of Polish descent, including: