Brook

This name derives from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) “brōc,” which in turn from the Germanic “*brōkaz” meaning “near a stream, near a brook, a brook or a stream.” Brooke and Brook is the form used in the masculine since the seventeenth century, while the female appeared in the nineteenth century. Brooklyn is a given name that has increased in popularity for girls in the United States. It has occasionally been used as a name in honor of Brooklyn, the neighborhood of New York City. Still, it is regarded merely as a combination of the names Brook or Brooke, plus the suffix -LYN, which is an element in other contemporary names popular in the United States. The history of Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th-century from the small Dutch town of Breuckelen on the eastern bank of the Long Island River. Over time it became a famous city in the 19th-century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City, then confined to Manhattan and part of the Bronx. The remaining rural areas of Kings County and the rural areas of Queens and Staten Island formed the modern city of New York.