The historian and geographer Mariano Felipe Paz Soldán relates the name Ubinas to two terms in two different languages. In the indigenous language Quechua, uina means to stuff or to fill, and uiña is translated as to grow or to increase. In Aymara, hupi means weep or murmur; hupina is the genitive of hupi. Local inhabitants believed that Ubinas was infested by demons and the souls of people who had fallen from God. The volcano is also known as Uvillas or Uvinas.