Let’s start with the chickpea. The Latin word cicer refers to the plant family of legumes. Actually, ancient Roman scholar Cicero got his name from the word cicer since his family grew legumes on their farm.  This word then led to “Pois Ciche” in modern French, which was then brought across the English channel to Chiche Peas in English. This would eventually morph into chickpea as we know today. 

The roots of the word garbanzo come from Basque roots. Their word for chickpea was “garbantzu” which combined the word “garau,” meaning “seed,” and “antzu,” meaning “dry.” Without going into specifics of the history of the Basque and Spanish relations, there seems to be a feeling that the word was then stolen by the Spanish.