'Balkan' originates from Turkish, specifically the word 'balkan', where it meant 'a chain of wooded mountains'.

'Balkan' was used in Ottoman Turkish and later entered European languages in the 19th century; it came into English as the name for the mountain range and then for the surrounding region, eventually becoming the modern English term 'Balkans'.

Initially it meant 'mountain range' in Turkish, but over time it came to denote the geographic and political region in southeastern Europe now called the 'Balkans'.