Attested by the name Ispira (712), Ispira (XIV). Appears as Ispratium in Aegidius Tschudi's Beschreibung Galliae Comatae.[4] According to Gaudenzio Merula the origin of the name could lie onto the rocky nature of this landscape; Hisprum quasi asperum ob saxorum difficultates,[5] that is to say equivalent to the Latin hispida (cf. hispid and ispido) and related to the Provençal ispre with the "d" shifting to an "r" due to rhotacism.[6]