Since bar בר means "son" (primarily in Aramaic, but also in Hebrew, see Mishlei 31:2), and mitzva מצוה is generally translated as "commandment", a popular translation for bar mitzvah בר מצוה is "son of the commandment(s)", which would be understood as "a son, a boy, to whom the mitzvot apply (since he reached the age of 13)."
However, that translation isn't actually the best one. Bar, as well as ben בן (the more common Hebrew term for "son"), is a prefix found in many phrases with a meaning that is hard to pin down, but includes such senses as "belonging to", "worthy of", "capable of" and the one most relevant to us, "obligated in".
While in many cases mitzva can refer to an individual commandment, there are many times in the Torah where it refers to the Law as a whole, and actually is a synonym for the word "Torah". See for example Devarim 5:28 and 6:25. where we find the phrase כל המצוה. Some translations aren't consistent here, such as the Living Torah
So bar mitzva simply means "one who is obligated in the Torah". (We might think that the phrase ben torah בן תורה or the Aramaic equivalent בר אוריין bar orayan would be synonymous, but they diverged into a different sense, with the meaning "one who has learned much Torah, a scholar"). And this meaning of bar mitzva is how it first appears in the Talmud, as in Bava Metzia 96a, where it compares a messenger who is a bar mitzva (i.e. obligated in the mitzvot of the Torah) to a slave, who is not a bar mitzva, since he is not obligated in the mitzvot. (We also find the the phrase bat mitzva בת מצוה in the Talmud, for example Bava Kama 15a, meaning a woman obligated in mitzvot.)
Only late in the Medieval period do we find bar mitzva refer to the boy who has turned 13. But the phrase always refers to the person himself - "he is a bar mitzva". I don't know when it first began to refer to the event or the celebration, but I suspect it is a Yiddishism.
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