Names · Origins · Local knowledge
The Meaning of the Name
The direct answer: when legislators proposed the new city in early 2024, they chose the name Mulberry because it was already written all over the place, Little Mulberry Park sits inside the proposed boundary, Mulberry Lake lies within it, and the Mulberry River runs nearby, all names that trace back to the mulberry trees that have marked this part of Georgia for a long time.
The name was not invented for the new city. It was borrowed from the ground itself, and the city has simply carried a local name that was already there.
The place names
Mulberry was already on the map
The name came from local geography, not a marketing brainstorm. Little Mulberry Park, the large Gwinnett County nature park that anchors the area, lies within or along the proposed city boundary. Mulberry Lake is on the same waterway system. The Mulberry River flows through the region. And the historic Mulberry community, an old community along Mulberry Creek that long predates the new city, gave the area its first claim to the name, which is why Gwinnett County's Mulberry Elementary School carries it too.
During the naming debate, other candidates were considered and set aside, including Hamilton Mill and Mill Creek, both names tied to the area's dominant landmarks. In the end the older, wider name won, which is one reason Mulberry feels right to locals even in a brand-new city: it was the label on this country long before the city existed.
The tree
The mulberry tree's long Georgia story
Beneath all the local place names sits the tree itself. The mulberry is not native to everywhere it grows, but it has been part of Georgia since the colony's earliest days: colonial Georgia's founding seal featured a mulberry leaf, a silkworm, and a cocoon, and the colony actively promoted mulberry trees for silk cultivation. The experiment never became the industry its promoters hoped, but the tree stayed, seeding itself along creeks and field edges across the Piedmont, which is how so many creeks, lakes, and communities in this part of Georgia ended up named for it.
So the name works on two levels at once: a concrete local chain of park, lake, river, and community, and a much older Georgia habit of naming the countryside after the mulberry that thrived in it. Georgia's newest city turned out to have one of the state's oldest names.
Keep reading
The fuller Mulberry story
The Mulberry history page covers how the city voted itself into being in May 2024 and the older Duncan City story at the county line.
The about the city page explains what kind of city Mulberry is and how a limited-service city works.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 22, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.