section_path: Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: 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 Spania (meaning "Land of rabbits "), therefore, the most accepted theory is the Phoenician one. There have been a number of accounts and hypotheses about its origin:
  
  Jesús Luis Cunchillos argued 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". 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, and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits". The word in question actually means " Hyrax ", possibly due to the Phoenicians confusing the two animals.
  
  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.