The familiar Ignatius may simply have served as a convenient substitution when representing the unfamiliar Íñigo/Eneko in scribal Latin. It was frequently represented in medieval documents as Ignatius (Spanish "Ignacio"), which is thought to be etymologically distinct, coming from the Roman name Egnatius, from Latin ignotus, meaning "unknowing", or from the Latin word for fire, ignis.
It can be compared with its feminine form, Oneca. 790–851 or 852), a Basque who ruled Pamplona. In the early Middle Ages, the name appears in Latin, as Enneco, and Arabic, as Wannaqo (ونقه) in reports of Íñigo Arista (c. While mostly seen among the Iberian diaspora, it also gained a limited popularity in the United Kingdom.Įarly traces of the name Eneko go back to Roman times, when the Bronze of Ascoli included the name forms Enneges and Ennegenses among a list of Iberian horsemen granted Roman citizenship in 89 B.C.E.
Ultimately, the name means "my little (love)". Inigo derives from the Castilian rendering ( Íñigo) of the medieval Basque name Eneko. Basque Eneko, ene- "mine", -ko (hypocoristic) "my little (love/dear)"