Berlin Bears (Polar Bear Knut, Brown Bear, Black Bear, Giant Panda) - there are some more bears in my stream from Berlin Zoological Garden. An upright grunting bear is the animal of coats of arms and seals of the City of Berlin. But why? How or why Berlin's citizens chose the bear remains unknown. Most likely they were thinking of Albrecht I, nicknamed "the bear", who is considered to have been the conqueror and founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Another possibility is that Berliners decided on "speaking" arms since the first syllable of Berlin sounds like "Bär" (bear), although the two are not etymologically related. In medieval times "speaking" or canting arms were a favorite; people tried to depict names by use of phonetically similar symbols or rebuses.