In addition to the countless events that have affected the city of Catania in the previous centuries, we have also seen its illustrious name change: in fact, only starting from the 10th century was the city at the foot of the Etna volcano definitively called "Catania".
Catania: the name of a thousand settlers and the interpretations of a thousand scholars
What is the true origin of the name of the city at the foot of Mount Etna? Having been colonized by many peoples, its toponym has often undergone many changes. Historians have attempted to offer many interpretations to answer the question of the origin of the name "Catania." The Sicilian historian comes to our aid: Current Saints who, in his book “Discovering Catania”, tells us about the possible origins of the nameFirst of all, Correnti explains, we must ask ourselves what the origin of the geographical name "Catania" is: many maintain that it is the Greek toponym Katà Aitnet (under Etna, at the foot of Etna) which would derive directly from "Catania". This thesis is not accepted by glottologists, who maintain that the phonetic mutations would be too many and insignificant to admit a Katà Aitnet later transformed into “Catania”.
According to Giuseppe Vinci (18th century Sicilian etymologist), Catania derives from Hebrew or Phoenician Katna, that is "smallAccording to the journalist and scholar Saverio Fiducia, it does not derive from “small” but rather from the fusion of two Greek words “Kata and Ana” which would identify the upper and lower part of the city.
Catania as a "grater": the origin of the name Katàne
For Santi Correnti it is Katàne the most important toponym that derives from Catania. Both the Catania history that glottology confirms: in ancient Sicilian there is a word that sounds Katàne, just as the Greeks once called our city. Katàne, compared to other interpretations, reflects both the city's history and the geological characteristics of the place. In fact, the ancient term derives from "grattugia," a word that describes the typical texture of Catania's soil, made of rough, sharp lava soil.
The Calcirese colonists later Greekized the term: the city of Catania was called Catane. When the Romans arrived during the First Punic War, it became Catania and then CatinaAfter the Roman period ended and the Byzantines arrived in the city, Catania resumed its old Greek name. Catane, pronounced however in the Byzantine manner, that is Catania. The Arabic names, on the other hand, had a very short life: Balad-el-fil and also Medinat-elfil, or the "City of the Elephant". Later, the Syracusan Hiero I, who conquered Catania in 476 BC, also gave the city a name.Aitna of Hiero was celebrated by the Greek playwright Aeschylus in a tragedy now lost, The EtnaeAfter the death of the Syracusan, the people of Catania reconquered the city in 461 BC and gave it back its old name.
Soon, the ancient names given by the settlers to the city were abandoned and forgotten and the old indigenous name regained strength with all the phonetic changes it had undergone over the years: the one and only Catania.
Cover photo source: Sicilian Environmental Tourism.
