Tell al-Hara was known as Jabal Ḥārith in the late Byzantine era. It was named after the Ghassanid king al-Harith and was referred to as Ḥārith al-Jawlān by the contemporary Arab poets al-Nabigha and Hassan ibn Thabit. The modern name of the tell and the town at its foot, al-Ḥāra, is a mutilated version of its Ghassanid name al-Ḥārith, according to historian Irfan Shahîd. The tomb of the Ghassanid king al-Nu'man ibn al-Harith was said to be located at the summit of Tell al-Hara by al-Nabigha, though the scholarly consensus places al-Nu'man's tomb in the village of al-Hara.