Name of Mexico - Etymology

Etymology

According to one legend, the war deity and patron of the Mexica Huitzilopochtli possessed Mexitl or Mexi as a secret name. Mexico would then mean "Place of Mexi" or "Land of the War God."

Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from a portmanteau of the Nahuatl words for "moon" (mētztli) and navel (xīctli). This meaning ("Place at the Center of the Moon") might then refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the moon.

Still another hypothesis offers that it is derived from Mectli, the goddess of maguey.

These last two suggestions are deprecated by linguist Frances Karttunen, since the final form "Mēxihco" differs in vowel length from both proposed elements. Nahua toponymy is full of mysticism, however, as it was pointed out by the Spanish missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. In his mystic interpretation, Mexico could mean "Center of the World," and, in fact, it was represented as such in various codices, as a place where all water currents that cross the Anahuac ("world" or "land surrounded by seas") converge (see image on the Mendoza codex). It is thus possible that the other meanings (or even the "secret name" Mexi) were then popular pseudoetymologies.

The suffix -co is almost certainly the Nahuatl locative, turning the word into a place name. All Nahuatl names ending with either a "co" or "ca" refer to "place" or "serpent." In this case, "Mexico" makes reference denoting the "place of the bearded serpents," since it notes the place of the inhabitants, the Mexica. "Mexica" and "Mexico" have as their foundation the name "Meexicanoob" in the Mayan language. "Meex" means beard, the "i" is from the Nahuatl "ihuitl," for feathers, and "ca," or "co," in this case refers to the Serpent. "The Serpent with the beard of feathers" is thus a reference to the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl, who was also the Sun, who was a serpentine symbol in Nahuatl and Mayan thought, and the "beard of feathers" makes reference to the rays of the Sun. This is the native Mexican explanation for the names Mexica and Mexico.