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It struck me last night that the "Him" of Himbeere could in some sense be in opposition to the apparent "Erde" of Erdbeere. Is there an etymological connection here?

Since these are not, e.g., Himmelbeeren, I'm assuming any connection would have originated long before modern German.

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    Nope. Yup.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Dec 29, 2020 at 21:31
  • See Kluge and DWDS, the "Him" is cognate to English "hind" (doe). The 'n' changed to 'm' because of a standard sound change in German (as well as English). There are many animal and plant names in German with interesting derivations, but I don't think this is one of them.
    – RDBury
    Dec 30, 2020 at 5:08
  • I closed this question, because it can be solved by looking the two terms up in a dictionary, for instance at dwds.de
    – Jonathan Scholbach ♦
    Dec 30, 2020 at 20:20
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    If someone asks a question in English, then one cannot assume that a completely German site like DWDS will help them. Especially if it is linked without further explanation.
    – mtwde
    Dec 30, 2020 at 21:39
  • I think the closure means a "very likely, no".
    – peterh
    Dec 30, 2020 at 23:24

1 Answer 1

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While the "Erdbeere" really is the fruit from the soil (Erde), the raspberry (Himbeere) is the hindberry, the berry of the hind, which is a nordic name for the deer.

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