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In Polish, as in any other language, the place names inform about place, direction, identify villages and towns. To play the role of the “identificators” they have to be stable and synchronised with the place name’s system of the land. After the first world war there was the need to standarize and to codify the names of three regions which were under three different administrations (Russian, Austrian and German) so the names could serve the policy of the land, work of the administration, post, railway and other. The foreign names have to be changed or adapted to the Polish language. The government called a special Committee of Place names and other topographic objects. In 1946, a new Commission Establishing Names of Localities in the Ministry of Public Administration, which operates today as an advisory body to the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration under the name: Commission on Names of Places and Physiographical Objects. It operates on the basis of Act on Proper Names (which decides that an onomastician is a head of the Committee). Its task is to standarize and codify the place names, to accept the new names, to check if they are correct of the point of view of system of Polish place names, Polish orthography and the norm of the language. In administration and other legal use the place names have to be used in standarized and codified forms. There are some trends in the construction of names and name changes motivations. These are: the historical motivations, prestige, the feeling of ridicule, the desire to preserve the characteristics of the local pronunciation, administrative. The most common are requests for administrative motivations often caused by ad hoc needs of the local authorities and residents. The Committee since 2005 have a new task to settle the names in the minority languages. The work of this Committee serve the functioning Poland as a land, the administration, communication of all types, they are works for the common good.
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