köken: The place is first mentioned by this name in the late 12th century (as Middle Low German Berlyn). The origin is unknown. Slavic by the suffix -in. According to (incorrect) folk etymology, the name is derived from the Bär (“bear”) that is the symbol of the city. In a popular etymology of Germanists, it is derived from a Polabian stem *berl- ~ *birl- (“swamp”), for which lexical item there is no…