What does Harbin （哈爾濱）mean?

Harbin is the capital city of China’s north most province. There are many attempts to guess what the name means. Here I offer my guess. See if it makes sense.

The area around northeast China is the origin of many linguistic groups. An example is the Altaic language group, which extends from Japan to Turkey. We might find something from other languages. 

We may notice the word harbinger. The beginning part of this word is harbin. The original meaning of harbinger is a person who provides lodging. Harbin probably means lodge. In phonetics, {g, k, h} belong to the same group. Harbin is equivalent to cabin. This strengthens the argument that harbin is cabin or lodge. 

The original meaning of Harbin is probably lodge or cabin. It probably also means harbor. In essence, it is a place to live and congregate.