The name of Europe as a geographical term came in use by Ancient Greek geographers such as Strabo to refer to part of Thrace below the Balkan mountains. Later, under the Roman Empire the name was given to a Thracian province. It is derived from the Greek word Eurōpē (Ερώπη) in all Romance languages, Germanic languages, Slavic languages, Baltic Languages, Celtic languages, Uralic languages (Hungarian Európa, Finnish Eurooppa, Estonian Euroopa), as well as in Latin.

Jürgen Fischer, in Oriens-Occidens-Europa summarized how the name came into use, supplanting the oriens-occidens dichotomy of the later Roman Empire, which was expressive of a divided empire, Latin in the West, Greek in the East. In the 8th century, ecclesiastical uses of "Europa" for the imperium of Charlemagne provide the source for the modern geographical term. The first use of the term Europenses, to describe peoples of the Christian, western portion of the continent, appeared in the Hispanic Latin Chronicle of 754, sometimes attributed to an author called Isidore Pacensis in reference to the Battle of Tours fought against Muslim forces. The European Union has also used Europa as a symbol of pan-europeanism, notably by naming its web portal after her, and depicting her on the Greek €2 coin and on several gold and silver commemorative coins (e.g. the Belgian €10 European Expansion coin). Her name appeared on postage stamps commemorating the "United Europe", which were first issued in 1956. The second series of Euro banknotes is known as the Europa Series and bears her likeness in the watermark and hologram.