The origin of the name Catania dates back to the time of the Sicels, a population that inhabited Sicily before the Greeks.
So the Sicels called their village “Katana”, meaning grater, to emphasise the irregular and porous surface of the solidified lava.
Afterwards, each population that occupied the city made a slight change to its name: it remained Katana for the Greeks, Katina for the Romans, Katani for the Byzantines, and during the island’s Muslim rule, it regained its original name which then became Catania.
