This article presents the results of research into Podlasie surnames motivated by common nouns (appellatives). Appellatives reconstructed on the basis of surnames used in this region are very often associated genetically with East Slavonic subdialects (mainly Belarusian and Ukrainian), which differ from Polish at the phonetic level, including full-voiced articulation, the lack of nasal vowel production, softening in combinations such as *tj, *dj and other features. The presence of subdialect vocabulary of East Slavonic origin shows the influence of the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages, and their regional varieties on the process of surname formation in Podlasie, reaching the area under discussion together with successive waves of incomers of Russian origin.