The pirate name buccaneer came from the French word boucan, which refers to a way of cooking meat over an open fire.

The words that are derived from boucan appeared during the XVIth century, after the voyages of the French explorers in the West Indies and in North and South America. Boucan first designated the wooden grid on which native peoples rested their meats and fish, which were cooked by the heat and smoke. Then came the words boucane to designate the smoke itself and boucané to describe this form of cooking which was used to preserve the flesh of animals.