the real name of the city Cracow
Kraków or Cracow ?
Legend has that the city has been founded more than a thousand years ago by the king Krak.
So the name Kraków [Crack-oo-f] means the site of king Krak.
According to the archeologists indeed there was a family Krak living near Vistula river around that time,
so maybe the legend is true.
Krak however couldn’t be the real crowned king only the prince, as the first king in polish history is Mieszko,
and his crowned ( in 1025) son Bolesław Chrobry.
The prince Krak is sometimes called Krakus,and nowadays Krakus means an old citizen of the city.
The name Cracovia comes from the document written by Ibrahim ibn Yaqub , a jewish merchant who between 965 and 971 travelled throughout Western and Central Europe.
The report of Ibrahim ibn Yaqub written in the book ‘ ” by Al-bekri mentions the big site ‘Karako (krakou,krakau) ‘ from which to Prague the journey lasted three weeks).
Polish ‘Dagome iudex’ (written in latin) gives the name ‘Craccoa’.
The next medieval latin documents also written in Poland use the name ‘Cracovia’ , and after those is
the english pronunciation ‘Cracow’, and italian or spanish ‘Cracovia’.
Here are some names of Kraków in different languages :
Kraków (Polish, Swedish)
Krakow / Cracow (English variants)
Cracovia (Italian, Romanian, Spanish)
Cracóvia (Portuguese)
Cracovie (French)
Kroke - קראָקע (Yiddish)
Kraká (Icelandic)
Krakau (Dutch, German)
Krakiv - Краків (Ukrainian)
Krakkó (Hungarian)
Krakov (Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Turkish)
Krakov - Краков (Russian, Serbian)
Krakova (Latvian, Finnish)
Krakovía - Κρακοβία (Greek)
Krakovja (Maltese)
Krakovo (Esperanto)
Krākūf (Arabic)
Krokuva (Lithuanian)
Krakaŭ - Кракаў (Belarusian)
.