Names
The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Phoenician Barkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription in Iberian script as, in Ancient Greek sources as Βαρκινών, Barkinṓn; and in Latin as Barcino, Barcilonum and Barceno.
During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.
Some sources say that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC.
Barcelona's name is sometimes abbreviated as 'Barna'. Nowadays, foreign people sometimes mistakenly refer to Barcelona as 'Barça', the name of the popular F.C. Barcelona sports club. Some people (mainly in Spanish/Catalan)also use the BCN acronym.
Read more about this topic: Barcelona
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“Nor youth, nor strength, nor wisdom spring again,
Nor habitations long their names retain,
But in oblivion to the final day remain.”
—Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612–1672)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)