The first written mention of Èze, under the name Avisionis portus, appeared in the maritime section of the Itinerary of Antoninus, a travel guide to ancient Rome that listed the stopover towns of the Roman Empire. The name Ese was then mentioned in 1241, but it was not fixed in the form of Esa until after its annexation to the House of Savoy, in 1388. It then was transformed into Ezo in Provençal and translated into French in Èze. Another thesis on the name of the village considers a Latin origin from Avisia, which means point of view, with the apheresis of the prefix av. Èze is, in any case, one of the rare French localities to bear a palindrome name.