Etymology

Compare Aromanian bardzu ‎(“white (of horses and mules)”): both it and the Romanian word may derive from Albanian bardhë ‎(“white”), or are akin to it. Alternatively, the Romanian word may derive from a pre-Roman substrate of the Balkans, possibly from or via Dacian, from Proto-Indo-European *bhereg- ‎(“white”).

Another theory, though somewhat unlikely, suggests that its origin is a Vulgar Latin root *gardea, from Latin ardea (compare Spanish garza, Portuguese garça, also French barge). The confusion of g and b is somewhat unusual, but may be explained as a Balkan influence. Other cases in Romanian include limbă, rug, negură, întreba (compare also Sardinian bula, from Latin gula) ^[1].

A third proposal is borrowing from a Dacian word meaning "stork", derived from a Proto-Indo-European root *sr̥ǵos, also reflected in e.g. English stork, Ancient Greek πελαργός ‎(pelargós).^[2]