# How did 'Barbarians' get their name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120 "2002-12-11T22:38:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mellonhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@mellonhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mellonhead)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/1 "2002-12-11T22:38:16Z")
Someone tried to tell me that the Barbarians got their name from the Romans. Apparently their language was so gutteral sounding to the Latins that when they spoke it sounded as if they were saying, “bar, bar, bar, bar”. Needless to say, as cute as the story is, I need some confirmation to repeat this little fact at dinner parties. I tried searching the message boards, but lots of Dopers like to use the word ‘barbarian’ in their posts. An internet search seemed just as fruitless as I got countless sites with Conan as the main focus. Can anyone help me? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/2 "2002-12-11T22:47:14Z")
The Oxford English Dictionary, my usual first search for etymology, only gives the history of the word back to the Middle Ages. I do know that it is not derivative of another Greek term (as “economy” is derivative of “oikos” [house] or utopia is derivative of “ou topos” [no place]), which would lend credence to it being onomatopoeic, and the “b” sound was not pleasant to the Greeks rather like the hard “ch” in Hebrew isn’t pleasant to westerners. I’ve always read the “bar bar” story also and think it’s probably the correct one. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/3 "2002-12-11T22:50:24Z")
Also: Barbarian [www.westegg.com/etymology](http://www.westegg.com/etymology) From the Greek “barbaroi,” meaning “babblers,” used to mean non-Greeks, i.e., people who didn’t speak Greek; from the sound that the Greeks thought they were making: “bar bar bar bar…” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/4 "2002-12-11T23:06:52Z")
The Berber peoples of North Africa got that name the same way, from the Romans. They call themselves by the name of their individual tribes, for example the Imazighen of the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. But they don’t mind being called “Berber” by non-Berbers. ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/5 "2002-12-11T23:48:25Z")
I’d heard that it comes from their habit of wearing beards. The Latin for “beard” is “barba.” Romans didn’t wear 'em, so they saw Those People as, well, barbaric. I’m not sure if this is true or not, not knowing enough about Roman culture and Latin etymology, but there ya go. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/6 "2002-12-12T00:38:42Z")
From the Staff Report [What’s the origin of “booby trap”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbooby.html): The word “boob” traces from the Spanish bobo meaning stupid, which in turn comes from the Latin balbus meaning stammering. The ancient Romans considered stammering to be a sign of stupidity. This type of word is called “echoic,” kind of onomatopeic, reflecting the repetitive stammer ---
**Author:** ![lindsay.reid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@lindsay.reid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsay.reid)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/7 "2002-12-12T01:36:10Z")
My Latin prof at University told our class the same story that you heard. He said that speakers of Latin didn’t like gutteral sounds and glottal stops. These noises grated on their ears and foreign tongues did sound like “bar bar bar” to them. Thus, the origin of the word. Someone also brought up the beard theory to him, and he dismissed that. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/8 "2002-12-12T01:42:19Z")
Yeah, I dunno about the beard theory. It went in and out of fashion in Rome-- after Marcus Aurelius grew one (for example) it seems that everybody did for a while after. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/9 "2002-12-12T21:17:24Z")
Had a professor of classical studies in college, he supported the “bar bar bar” explanation. ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/10 "2002-12-12T22:37:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Put that down. Now. How did you know? RR ---
**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-barbarians-get-their-name/142120/11 "2002-12-13T13:14:29Z")
Let’s hear the Master in [Why are there so many names for Germany, AKA Deutschland, Allemagne, etc.?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_162.html) > [@](#): > > Similarly, our word “barbarian” is believed to derive from the Greek barbaros–non-Greek, foreign, rude–which many scholars say comes from the Indo-European root baba-, a word “imitative of unarticulated speech,” my dictionary says. The ancient Greeks evidently thought foreign chitchat all sounded like “ba-ba-ba,” baby talk, although I suppose you could also make the case they’d just stumbled across some primeval ancestor of the Beach Boys, as in “Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ber Ann.” Thus, it pre-dates the romans, and the roots have to be traced in ancient greek.