Bahamontes was born in Santo Domingo-Caudilla, Toledo to Julián Martín and Victoria Bahamontes. Unlike the usual custom of calling a Spaniard by the first of two surnames, Bahamontes is known by his second; there were too many with the surname Martín in his village so he took up his mother's surname. He is named after his uncle, Federico, who was the head of the family and proclaimed that Bahamontes would be called after him at the baptism in the local church. Between 1929 and 1931, his parents had three more children, all girls. Bahamontes attended a school in Toledo run by nuns, which he did not enjoy. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, but Bahamontes' father, a veteran of the Cuban War of Independence did not fight because he was too old. Along with other civilians in Toledo, however, he was enlisted by Nationalist forces to act as reinforcements as Republican forces closed in on Toledo. He managed to escape this service, but when he returned home, he found soldiers who "called themselves Communists" and ordered him to open the storehouses on the estate where the family lived. He refused, before running away, and eventually escaping the ensuing manhunt by hiding in a doorway.