Toponymy
Research in progressEstepona's name is older than the Arabic it was first written in
Istibuna, Estebbuna, Astabbuna: the medieval Arabic forms that gave us Estepona are not the origin of the name, according to a state-funded toponymy research project. They are simply the first time anyone wrote it down. The name itself is older, and its meaning has been lost.
Origen del topónimo
Prerromano, significado desconocido (*ISTIPPONA)
Reconstrucción propuesta
*Istippo / Istipponis
Topónimos emparentados
Acinippo, Baecippo, Baesippo, Ventippo
Origen fenicio-púnico
Sin respaldo según el estudio, que apunta en cambio a un origen tartesio-turdetano
Forma escrita más antigua conservada
Arabizada (época andalusí)
Mención castellana más antigua verificada
«Villa de Estepona», Crónica de Enrique IV (comp. 1481-1502)
According to Toponomasticon Hispaniae, a research project funded by Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation with several Spanish universities taking part, Estepona's place name does not originate in Arabic. It comes from a pre-Roman root, *Istippona, whose meaning is unknown. Linguist José A. Correa, cited by the project, reconstructs the original form as *Istippo / Istipponis, related to other place names in the same area — Acinippo, Baecippo, Baesippo, Ventippo — which share the same [ist-] and [-ipp] segments. Correa finds no support for a Phoenician-Punic origin and instead proposes a Tartessian-Turdetanian one, within the same group of place names in [-ipp]. The oldest surviving written form of the name, however, is the Arabicised one: no earlier text has survived. From there the name passes into Castilian chronicles — the earliest verified instance, Diego Enríquez del Castillo's Crónica de Enrique IV, already writes "villa de Estepona" — down to the form used today.
Full article
The complete article with all sources and detail is available in Spanish.
Full translation into English is planned for a future phase.