The Etymology of Barcelona
Barcelona's name is older than Latin and probably older than the Romans understood. The Roman colonia Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino was founded in the late first century BCE, and by then Barcino was already the local name for the settlement on the coastal hill of Mons Taber. A persistent Roman and medieval tradition attributed the foundation to the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, around 230 BCE — and the consonance of Barca and Barcino fed the story for centuries. Modern scholarship treats this as folk etymology: there is no archaeological evidence for a Barcid foundation, and the name probably preserves an Iberian or Phoenician substrate term whose original meaning is no longer recoverable. The Latin Barcino evolved into Barchinona by the early Middle Ages and to Catalan Barcelona by the 12th century, the form still used. English borrowed it directly from Catalan-Spanish and has not altered it.