Etymology
Who claimed the root of the word "span" came from the Phoenician word meaning "to forge metal"?
Spain
The origins of the Roman name "Hispania", from which the modern name "España" was derived, are uncertain and are possibly unknown due to the inadequate evidence. "Hispania" may derive from the poetic use of the term "Hesperia", reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" ("Hesperia", "Ἑσπερία" in Greek) and Spain, being still further west, as "Hesperia ultima". It may also be a derivation of the Punic "I-Shpania" (אי שפניא), 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 coney at her feet, and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits". 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 of the European continent. The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word "Hispania" evolved from the Iberian word "Hispalis", meaning "city of the western world". Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term "span" is the Phoenecian word "spy", meaning "to forge metals". Therefore "i-spn-ya" would mean "the land where metals are forged". Two 15th century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abrabanel and Shelomó ibn Verga, have given a different explanation as to how Spain derived its name. Don Isaac Abrabanel was one of the principal persons of Spain’s Jewish community and one of the king’s trusted courtiers who witnessed the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had been given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, who also ruled over a kingdom in Spain. Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España (Spain) took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c. 350 BCE.