The extent of Berber lexical influence on Maltese remains unclear, and many of the published etymological proposals are problematic. This article evaluates the reliability of existing proposed Maltese etymologies involving Berber, excluding 50 but accepting 20, and proposes new Berber etymologies for another six Maltese words (bażina “overcooked, sticky food”, ċkejken “small”, daqquqa “cuckoo”, dis “dis-grass, sparto”, tmilla “female cuttlefish used as bait”), as well as a diminutive formation strategy using -a. Based on the results, it examines the distribution of the loans found, in the hope of casting light on the context of Arabic-Berber contact in Ifrīqiyah before the arrival of the Banū Hilāl.