Poggenpfuhl

Already mentioned in 1367 as "Poggenpul" in connection with a mortgage on a property. The name and its area of application appear to have remained unchanged ever since. A frog pond in the area gave rise to the street's name. The swampy ground of the suburb, to which other street names also attest, still caused great difficulties during the construction of the suburban enclosure wall in the 15th century.

W. Stephan simply explains the name as deriving from a frog pond, but does not elaborate on the deeper connotation of this designation as it was understood in the 16th to 18th centuries -- much like in other cases, such as the name "Altes Ross" (Old Horse). For the "Pogge" was already a symbol of prostitutes in ancient Greece. Since the end of the Middle Ages, knowledge of ancient Greek texts had been quite widespread in Europe. The general use of this term in the Middle Low German dialect is evidenced by Luebeck court records of the period: in roughly 75 percent of hearings for insult, the dispute involved one woman calling another a "Pogge," while the accused indignantly replied that she was an honest woman.

The meaning of the word "Pfuhl" (pool) also shifted in the 16th century. Previously a simple pond, it acquired a decidedly new meaning no later than through Martin Luther's Bible translation (Sodom and Gomorrah as a "pool of sin"). And precisely this meaning must have been omnipresent in the consciousness of Protestant, German-speaking citizens in the 16th century. Various sources reveal that the neighboring Ketterhagergasse was in fact a red-light lane. Considering the size of Danzig and the fact that it was a port city in a double sense -- maritime trade and Vistula river shipping -- one can safely assume that the red-light district was not limited to that one small lane. Thus the street may originally have been named after a frog pond, but from the 16th century onward, the name was perceived more as a kind of "sinful harlots' pool."

Translating the present-day Polish name is nearly impossible, as it arose from a misunderstanding. The term "Pogge" was translated as "frog," while the word "Krug" was adopted phonetically as "Kruk" (raven). This naming is not particularly meaningful.