There are four different versions of how the town got its name.

The first involves the simplistic story that an old woman. when asked the name of the place by the Spanish explorers, had thought they asked her name and responded, "Vale."

A second version suggests that the place name's origin is the Dumagat word balid, which means "to return," and which the people of the area used to refer to a hunter or food-gatherer coming back from a foray into the nearby mountains.

A third version refers to a lakan (nobleman) named Balid who lived in the region before the Spanish coming. In the absence of historical records, the origin of the name of a place may be too easily conceived, imagined, and garbled.

Hence we put more faith on the fourth version, which suggests that the name Baler is taken from balod, which is the indigenous name for the mountain doves or palomas montes that continue to abound in the area. This, at any rate, is how the Noceda y Sanlucar Vocabulario of 1860 traces the origin of our capital town's name. By the way, our own Institute of National Language accepts this legend as theory.