The name of the town is ultimately based on the Medieval Latin form Sankt Andrae (English: St.Andrew). Because of the diverse mix of nations to have once settled in Szentendre, the settlement has a variety of names according to language. The Hungarian name for the town is Szentendre; the German name is Sankt Andrä; in Serbian, the name is Sentandreja (Serbian Cyrillic: Сентандреја); the Slovak name is Svätý Ondrej.
Populated for well over a millennium, under the Romans it was called Ulcisia Castra, meaning "Wolf Castle". Since the 16th century it was considered the center of the Hungarian Serb community. At one point it had as many as eight Serbian Orthodox church buildings and 3 chapels, and only one each Roman-Catholic and Evangelical. It is still the see of the Buda Diocese of the Serb Orthodox Church. Szentendre and the surrounding villages were also inhabited by Bulgarians ever since the Middle Ages. In 1690, the Serbian teacher and hegumen Stevan notes that Szentendre was even called Bolgarija by some. It had a Bulgarian neighbourhood of Catholic settlers from Chiprovtsi and a Roman Catholic "Chiprovtsi church" (Csiprovacska templom). The names of locals clearly hint at a Bulgarian population.
In the 18th century, after liberation from the Turks, Szentendre enjoyed a rebirth with Mediterranean leanings, as Serbian, Croatian, Slovak, German and Greek newcomers moved in and lived alongside the Magyar inhabitants. According to the 1720 data, 88% of the population of the town was South Slavs (mostly Serbs, but also some South Slavic Catholics). The town to this day is characterised by a south European atmosphere with much baroque architecture, churches of various faiths, narrow sidestreets, and cobblestone roads
