 The name "hydrochloric acid" was coined by the French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac in 1814.Hydrochloric acid has been an important and frequently used chemical from early history and was discovered by the alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan around the year 800 AD.Aqua regia, a mixture consisting of hydrochloric and nitric acids, prepared by dissolving sal ammoniac in nitric acid, was described in the works of Pseudo-Geber, a 13th-century European alchemist.