There are several explanations for their name, most common of which is that it comes from the river Buna in Central Herzegovina, their supposed original homeland before their migrations. However, it is not exactly certain from which exact part of the Dinaric Alps the Bunjevci came. Due to the fact they speak the ikavian štokavian dialect of the Serbo-Croatian group, some claim that they originate from northwestern Herzegovina and northern Dalmatia.
Historic documents also refer to Bunjevci as Dalmatians, Catholic Serbs (Catholic Rascians) as well as Bosnians. In October 1918, they held a national convention in Subotica and decided to secede Vojvodina from Hungary and join Serbia. This was confirmed at the Great National Assembly of the Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs in Novi Sad, which proclaimed unification with the Kingdom of Serbia in November of 1918.
Nationally, the Magyar censa from 1880 onward to 1910 numbered the Bunjevci distinctly, separate from the Serbs even though they were referred to as Catholic Serbs. The creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929) brought the Bačka Bunjevci in contact with the Croats. Through political rapprochement, some Bunjevci began developping a Croat national feeling. This was continued in Communist Yugoslavia which on the census of 1948]] did not officially recognize the Bunjevci counting all declared as such to be nothing more than Bačka Croats.
The 1990's saw a comeback of the Bunjevac national movement with their official recognition as a minority group in Serbia in 1990. In the 1991 and 2002 censa, the community was divided around the issue of the name: 20,000 declared themselves Bunjevci in terms of ethnicity whereas some 25,000 opted for the Croatdom. Save for some colonists who arrived after 1945 from Croatia, both halves of the community consider themselves ethnologically as Bunjevci, although each subscribing to its interpretation of the term.