Common in regional folklore, a myth exists purporting that the name is a conjunction of Tia Juana, the Spanish-language version of Aunt Jane.

Tia Juana would provide food and a resting place to travelers on their journeys.

Due to a recent increase in violence in the city, a new term is developing. Europeans arrived in 1542, when the explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo toured the coastline of the area, which was later mapped in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno.

The commonly accepted theory among historians is that the modern-day Tijuana is derived from a word belong to the Kumeyaay language – the original aboriginal inhabitants of the San Diego-Tijuana region.