Named after Potsdam, capital of Brandenburg; ‘Hauptbahnhof’ means main station.
Potsdam is first recorded in 993 as Poztupimi; the name is Slavic and describes the ‘settlement of a man named Potstampin’ – the popular reading ‘under the oaks’ does not hold up. The station dates from 1838, when the first railway in Prussia linked Berlin and Potsdam. It was called Potsdam Stadt from 1960 and has been Potsdam Hauptbahnhof only since 1999.