After criticizing attempts to explain the name of Rome without proper regard for the topography of the place and the early linguistic history of Italy, the Carthaginian dimension of early Rome is sketched and a Phoenician origin of the name is proposed: +Rōma, the Phoenician counterpart of Hebrew råmåh ‘elevation’, itself a frequent place name in the Semitic world, may have been the name of a trading post at or on that hill (out of the proverbial seven) standing closest to the ford at Tiber Island where two prehistoric trade routes joined and traversed the Tiber. A possible role of the originally pre-Indo-European names Palātium, Etrusco-Latin desig-nation of the Palatine Hill, and Rūmōn, old name of the Tiber river, for the selection of +Rōma as name for the location is considered.