English 'Spain' comes via French and Latin Hispania from a Phoenician name possibly meaning 'coast of hyraxes' — the Phoenicians may have named the peninsula after its rabbits, which they mistook for the rock badgers of their homeland.
A country in southwestern Europe occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula.
English 'Spain' derives via Old French 'Espaigne' from Latin 'Hispania'. The Latin name was borrowed from Phoenician, where the Iberian Peninsula was likely called 'i-shaphan' (𐤀𐤉 𐤔𐤐𐤍) meaning 'island/coast of hyraxes' (rock badgers). The Phoenicians may have mistaken Iberian rabbits for hyraxes, an animal familiar from their homeland. An alternative etymology proposes
If the hyrax etymology is correct, Spain is named after a case of mistaken zoological identity. Phoenician sailors, seeing the Iberian rabbit for the first time, apparently called it a hyrax (shaphan) — a small African mammal they knew from home. The same root 'shaphan' appears in Hebrew as the name of the rock hyrax in the Bible.