Frioul's names. - The Greeks had named these islands "Stoechades", undoubtedly because for a sailor who enters the roads they appear to form an alignment. Other archipelagoes in the Mediterranean bore names thus indicating the position of the islands. For example, Kikladhes, at Aegean Sea, laid out in circle, Sporades (today Dodecanese) because they like are scattered.

The islands of Hyères (Levant, Port-Cros, Porquerolles) were also named "Stoechades", the "rows". To distinguish them from these last, the Romans named the islands in front of Massilia "Stoechades Minores" (Smaller Stoechades). In 49 BC, Julius Caesar, besieging Marseilles, established its fleet between the two principal islands. The name of Fretum Julii (literally "the strait of Julius"), from where drift the name of "the Frioul", ends up extending to the unit.