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He believes that the Town must have been called Ugalete or Ugaleta, which in Basque means "place bordering on water", and when the Romans arrived they preceded it with the word Portu. Ciriquiain favours the theory that Portugalete stems from Portus Gallorum. According to a letter written in 1803 by J. A. Moguel to J. De Bargas, the names of Portugal and Portugalete have the same origin, although the latter has the locative ending "ete". He backs this up by pointing to the Gallic trend that is also apparent in some of the other surrounding place names: Galindo, Galea, Galdames, Galarreta, (Gallarta), etc. Bibliography: "
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