Berke Family History

German: topographic name for someone who lived by a birch tree or birch grove Middle Low German berke. In Westphalia, Berke Birke also means ‘brook stream’ and in some cases it may have been a topographic name for someone who lived by a stream.

Altered form of Swiss German Bürki: from a pet form of the personal name Burkhard (see Burkhart). Hungarian: variant of Berkes.

Slovenian: of Hungarian origin (see 3 above) or perhaps a topographic name derived from dialect berek ‘marsh with groves’ a loanword from Hungarian (compare Berkey).

Jewish (Ashkenazic): from the Yiddish personal name Berke, a pet form of Ber ‘bear’.