The origin of the name Tricarico is unknown. It might derive from the Greek "treis" ("three") and "cara" ("head"/"skull" in Hellenistic-era Greek: η κάρα, τό κάρα, η κάρη). That is "having three heads". According to a slightly different hypothesis, it could have originally been "Triacricon", deriving from the Greek words " tria"/"treis" and "acron"/"acra", which during Antiquity and Early Middle Ages meant both an "apex/summit", and a "citadel", with "Triacricon" thus meaning a city made by connecting "three citadels". These three "acra"/citadels were no other than the site of the 9th c Arabic castle of "Saracena" in the north, the site of a 9th-10th c Byzantine "Rocca fortificata" in the south, improved during the 11th-12th c by the Normans, and then, during the 13th c, by the Hohenstaufen, and also the site of the 14th c "Palazzo Ducale" in the middle. Probably the three sites were simultaneously fortified even before the successive occupations.