Founded as a Thracian settlement, it was later colonised by the Ionian ancient Greeks with the name Krounoi (renamed as Dionysopolis, after the discovery of a statue of Dionysus in the sea). Later became a Greek-Byzantine and Bulgarian fortress. Under the Ottoman enslavement, the town came to be known with its present name, which perhaps derived from a Gagauz word meaning "small town". Another opinion is that its actual name derived from that of a local noble — Balik.