About Subotica

There have been many different forms of the name of this city in history. This is because the city has welcomed so many different peoples since the Middle Ages. They all wrote about it, naming it in their own languages, which, for some, did not fix their spelling until modern times.

The earliest known written name of the city was Zabadka or Zabatka, which dates from 1391. This is a variant of the current Hungarian name for the city:Szabadka. The Hungarian name for the city may derive from the adjective szabad meaning "free", and the suffix -ka, an affectionate diminutive. Subotica's earliest designation would mean, therefore, something like a "small" or "dear" "free place". Another theory holds that the medieval name Zabatka could have derived from the South Slavic word "zabat", which described parts of