The Bolivian Chiquitano are often identified as inheritors of Jesuit culture, although their name and sociocultural situation changed greatly before and after the missionary period. The term “Chiquitos” evokes a family of ethnic, topographic, linguistic and identity concepts built and transformed since the 16th century. The aim of this essay is to reconstruct both the origin and changes in the naming of the Chiquitano peoples, and the different meanings associated with them. The analytical premise is the central role played by the ethnic relations with other native groups as well as with the White people, and its importance for the definition of the form and content of these groups and their names.