The name of Porto Heli according to the prevailing opinion came from a gradual linguistic alteration of the name “Aliis”, which was an ancient city, located at the current Porto Heli. The name Aliis through the years was pronounced Haliis and then Heli. To distinguish it from the nearby village of Heli (which now has been renamed Arachnaio) the word “Porto” was added to the name, simply because the village had a port.
In another view, the name (Heli) is one of the many Arvanitic names that are found in the Southern Argolid area and subsequently acquired the prefix Porto for the reason mentioned above.
