It is named after Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano, captain of Ferdinand Magellan's last exploratory fleet and the man who completed the first circumnavigation of the world.

In 1933 under Commander Salvador Moreno Fernández's order, a series of improvements were made to the ship and the bronze plate with the Latin language inscription Tu Primus Circumdedisti Me was placed near the prow.

At the time of the coup of July 1936, Juan Sebastián de Elcano was in Ferrol, a harbor that had been taken by the Nationalist faction.

Its plans were used twenty-five years later to construct its Chilean sail training vessel sister ship Esmeralda in 1952–1954.

It conducted sea trials between April and July that year from Cádiz to Málaga, with King Alfonso XIII on board as a passenger, and then on to Sevilla, Las Palmas, Tenerife, San Sebastián, Cádiz, São Vicente, Cape Verde, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Suva, San Francisco, California, Balboa, Panama, Havana, New York City, and Cádiz.