When the cards came into contact with the Islamic world, the Muslims adopted and renamed the suit of tens as swords.

This may have been due to the Chinese numeral character for "ten" (十) being seen with one of its strokes elongated.

In Spain, the suit of swords is known as espadas and the court cards are known as the rey (king), caballo (knight or cavalier) and sota (knave or valet).

[1] The interpretation and arrangement of the pips helps to subdivide the Latin-suit systems: Portuguese-suited playing cards were traded to Japan in the mid-16th century which influenced the development of Karuta where the 48-card Komatsufuda and 75-card Unsun Karuta decks still maintain this suit.

The pack is of the Castilian pattern: The gallery below shows a suit of swords from an Italian-suited deck of 52 cards.