Etymology
The name of Spain (España) comes from Hispania, the name used by the Romans for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces during the Roman Empire. The etymological origin of the term Hispania is uncertain, although the Phoenicians referred to the region as i-shphan-im, possibly meaning "Land of Rabbits" or "Land of Metals".[18] Jesús Luis Cunchillos and José Ángel Zamora, experts in Semitic philology at the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC), conducted a comparative philological study between several Semitic languages and hypothesise that the Phoenician name translates as "land where metals are forged", having determined that the name originated in reference to the gold mines of the Iberian Peninsula.[19] There have been a number of accounts and hypotheses about its origin:
Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenician word spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged".[20] It may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of rabbits", "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean; Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet,[21] and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits".[22] The word in question actually means "Hyrax", possibly due to the Phoenicians confusing the two animals.[23]
There is also the claim that "Hispania" derives from the Basque word Ezpanna, meaning "edge" or "border", another reference to the fact that the Iberian Peninsula constitutes the southwest corner of the European continent.[24]