Novak

Novak (in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene), Novák (in Czech and Slovak), Nowak (in German and Polish) is a Slavic name, both used as a given name and surname, derived from the word for "new" (e.g. Polish:nowy, Czech:nový, Serbo-Croatian:novo) meaning something similar to "new man", "newcomer", or "stranger" in English. The name was often given to someone who came to a new city, or a convert to Christianity. It was also used for newcomers into an army and as an occupational surname for people who used the slash-and-burn method to create new arable land—novina. It is pronounced almost the same way: the main difference is that in Slovene, the stress is on the last syllable, while in all other cases it is on the first one.