Vegetable names in the onion family come
from diverse sources. Onion itself comes
from the Latin for “one,” “oneness,”
“unity,” and was the name given by Roman
farmers to a variety of onion (cepa) that
grew singly, without forming multiple
bulbs as garlic and shallots do. Garlic is an
Anglo-Saxon word that meant “spear-
leek”: a leek with a slim, pointed leaf blade
rather than a broad, open one. And both
shallot and scallion come via Latin from
Ashqelon, the Hebrew name for a city in
what in classical times was southwest
Palestine.Onions and Shallots Onions are plants of the
species Allium cepa, which originated in
central Asia but has spread across the globe in
hundreds of different varieties. There are two
major categories of market onions in the
United States, defined not by variety but by
season and harvesting practice. Spring or