The name Blachernae is traditionally said to derive from a species of fish called blakernai (also called as lakernai), which was commonly found in the waters near the northwestern edge of Constantinople. According to local accounts preserved among the Greek inhabitants of the city, the quarter took its name from the fishermen who settled in the area and made a living from catching and selling these fish. This folk belief was first recorded by the 19th-century Greek historian
Skarlatos Byzantios, who noted that it was based on local Greek tradition. A similar explanation appears in a religious document dated to 1351, which states that the district derived its name from the Latin name of a species of fish commonly sold there by fishermen returning from the Bosphorus. In 1920, Romanian philologist
Ilie Gherghel proposed that the name
Blachernae may be connected to the Romanians, who were referred to as
Vlachs (also spelled
Blach or
Blasi) in the Middle Ages. He argued that the toponym might have originated from the name of a Vlach individual or community in the region. Gherghel compared data from old historians and suggested that a small Vlach community may have existed in the area of today Blachernae. It is possible that this community was so influential that the district itself came to bear their name. A similar view was later supported by another Romanian historian,
G. Popa Lisseanu, who also argued in favor of the Vlach origin for the name. ==Byzantine era==