'Hispania' originates from Latin, specifically the word 'Hispania', where many scholars trace the name further back to Phoenician/Punic elements often reconstructed as i-shapan or i-spn meaning 'land of rabbits' or 'island of hyraxes' in some ancient accounts.

'Hispania' was used in Greek as Ἱσπανία and in Latin as Hispania; the Latin term passed into medieval Latin and vernaculars as forms such as Old French 'Espaigne' and ultimately survived as a classical or historical name in modern languages.

Initially, it referred broadly to the geographic region of the Iberian Peninsula (and to Roman provincial divisions there); over time its use narrowed to historical, literary, and scholarly contexts referring to ancient or medieval Hispania rather than to the modern nation-state.