The etymology of 5 German cities

Photo: Jacob Thomas / Unsplash

Note to start with: adding –er onto the end of any German place name denotes a person or thing from that place, in the same way that someone from Islington might call him/herself a “Londoner”.

1. Hamburg - Hamburger

Has it ever occurred to you that the alleged “meat” in a hamburger is nothing like ham? The hamburger gets its name from the northern German city of Hamburg, the etymology of which is something like the “fortified town (Burg) in the bend of the river (Hamm)”. The famous foodstuff got its name from the town in its entirety, so using “burger” to refer to other things, such as veggie-burger, is an example of how the accepted meaning of a word has evolved over time.

2. Berlin - Berliner

In 1963, when JFK declared “Ich bin ein Berliner,” German speakers the world over sniggered at his faux pas, because a Berliner is the German word for doughnut. Mr Kennedy was intending to show his solidarity with the people of Berlin, stating that he was one of them, so if he had said “Ich bin Berliner,” he’d have been fine.

3. Frankfurt - Frankfurter

Frankfurt am Main brings us back to meat. Yes, the original low-budget Frankfurter sausage ultimately derives its name from “Where the Franks made a ford on the river Main” — Main pronounced like “mine,” by the way, not “main.” The Franks were the Germanic tribe that gave France its name. They also gave us words such as “frankly”, “frankincense” and “(dis)enfranchise”. We can also find a version of “Frank” cropping up in the name of one of the first great statesmen of the United States: Benjamin Franklin, whose name could be rendered as “Favoured son of a free-born landowner”.

Any other tasty German town words?

4. Our name for the capital of Austria is Vienna, but the locals call it Wien. The adjective from this – you can guess by now – is wiener (pron: “veener”). Depending on which part of the German-speaking world you are familiar with, and I include the USA, you might associate wiener with a type of hot-dog sausage, or a cutlet of veal: wiener Schnitzel.

Side-note: in French, viennoiserie is the word for fancy pastries, probably due to Marie Antoinette’s famously sweet tooth.

5. I’m biased, but Freiburg must be the greenest, warmest (in both senses of the word), and coolest city in Germany, and although I’m struggling to think of a commonly used term involving Freiburg, it is known as the gateway to the Black Forest – der Schwarzwald – and this region of outstanding beauty lends its name to a famous gateau, known in German as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte: “Black Forest Cherry Cake”.

   
   
   
   

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