Named after Birkenwerder, a Brandenburg municipality first recorded in 1355.
Birkenwerder was first mentioned by name in 1355, but a Slavic hillfort already stood at the mouth of the Briese in the 12th century. The village got its station on the Nordbahn (Northern Railway) in 1877. Until 1927 the station was called just Birkenwerder; then it gained the suffix ‘(b Berlin)’, short for ‘near Berlin’.