Jerez de La Frontera - Name

Name

Its name goes back to the existence of Phoenician Xera, Sèrès, then Romanized under the name of Ceret; the location of this settlement, however, remains unknown.

The classical Latin name of Asta Regia, unrelated to its present name, used to refer to an ancient city now found within Mesas de Asta, a rural district approximately 11 km (6.84 mi). from the center of Jerez.

The current Castilian name came by way of the Arabic name شريش Sherish. In former times, during the Muslim occupation of Iberia, it was called Xerez or Xeres. The name of the famous fortified wine, sherry, which originated here (although some argue that it originated in Shiraz, Persia), is an adaptation of the city's Arabic name, which is pronounced Sherish. Frontera in its name refers to being a Spanish frontier, located on the border between the Moorish and Christian regions of Spain during that period, a regular host to skirmishes and clashes between the two regions. Over two centuries later, after the conquest of Granada in 1492, Xerez definitely lost its status as a frontier city, but did not lose that designation.

When the Kingdom of Castile took Jerez on October 9, 1264, following the name given by the Muslims to the city in the period known as the Reconquista, the city was then called Xerez in medieval Castilian, transcribing the consonant /ʃ/ (like the English sh) with the letter ⟨x⟩, as was the rule at the time. In the 16th century, it the consonant /ʃ/ was starting to change into the consonant /x/, with the corresponding spelling of Jerez.

The old spelling "Xerez" was the name given to the city in several foreign languages until very recently, and today continues to influence the name given to sherry: Portuguese Xerez, Catalan Xerès, English sherry /ˈʃɛrɪ/, French Xérès, Italian Xeres . The city's main football team continues to use the old spelling, Xerez.