What nationality is this last name?

Question:Surdej
its pronounced "sir-day"

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Surdej
its pronounced "sir-day"

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/f...
has 37 of them, in Poland and the USA.

There are 17 of them in the USA in the 1930 census. It doesn't show the birthplace of everyone inthe view I used, just H of H. All of them are b. Poland.

If you'd like to read a joke about Olaf Olafson's Chinse restaurant, which is a cautionary tale about assuming nationalities from surnames, just ask.

it sounds indian--like the surname of a punjabi family

It's Galician, which means that it's from that part of Poland/Slovakia that was under the control of the Empire of Austria-Hungary before WWI. In that region, the familiar "-ski" is replaced by more Slovakian/Hungarian suffixes, including "-dej". Because Austria-Hungary didn't allow their Galician Slavs to emigrate until the late 1800s, the odds are good that if you request your immigrant ancestor's immigration and naturalization documents, you'll not only get their hometown, but also the names of their parents.