30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreWere the names Tenochtitlan and Mexico both used by the Aztecs?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Lucas Hartley: Were the names ‘Tenochtitlan’ and ‘Mexico’ (also ‘Mexico-Tenochtitlan’?) used interchangeably by the Aztecs? Were they used in different contexts? What about ‘Tenochca’ and ‘Mexica’? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Excellent questions, and we all agree there’s a lot of confusion surrounding the use of these terms when referring to the Aztecs/Mexica.
We’re quoting from different scholars here, to help clarify the terms.
First, ‘Mexico’. Gordon Whittaker (2021) writes:-
’”Aztec” refers only to one of the so-called Azteca Chichimeca - the Mexitin, who settled the marshy islands near the western shores of Metztliapan (“In the Waters of the Moon”), the lake network that once dominated the Valley of Mexico. These island settlements were collectively known as Mexico (“In the Navel [or Centre] of the Moon”) and their inhabitants as Mexica’ (emphasis added).
So ‘Mexico’ refers to the settlements, plural, rather than to the single (capital) city itself.
Alfredo López Austin (2001) explains further:-
’The term “Mexica” is used to denote two groups: first, the peoples who are considered, historically, to have come from Aztlán and who founded the two settlements of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco (each known as Mexico); and second, those who inhabited these cities, regardless of whether they were descendants of the original founders’ (emphasis added).
Tenochca (‘Those of Tenochco’) ‘is a more specific term [than Mexica] that refers to the people of Tenochtitlan. Both Mexica and Tenochca are prehispanic terms. Additional ethnic groups included the Acolhua, Tolteca, Matlatzinca, Culhua, Otomí, Teochichimeca, Tepaneca, Ocuilteca, Totonaque, and others that appear in ethnohistorical sources’ (Rodríguez-Alegría and Nichols, 2017).
Again, López Austin adds important details to this:-
’One of the principal problems the Mexica faced was their lack of political recognition. In order to interact as peers with their neighbours, they had to be constituted into tlatocayotl, or kingdoms; to achieve this, they began to seek connections to the nearest dynasties. Finally the Mexica-Tenochca acquired Acamapichtli, a member of the royal family of Culhuacan, as their ruler; the Mexica-Tlatelolca placed on their throne Cuacuauhpitzahuac, one of the sons of the Tepanec king of Azcapotzalco’ (emphasis added).
Finally, Cecilio A. Robelo (1951), in a lengthy and detailed entry on the Founding of Tenochtitlan, summarises as follows:-
1. Que la ciudad de México fué fundada por el sacerdote Tenoch, de donde tomó el nombre de Tenochtitlán.
2. Que en honra ó memoria del caudillo Mecitli ó Meci, quien después fue deificado, se dio a la ciudad el nombre de Mecico, y por eso llevó el doble nombre de Mecico-Tenochtitlan.
3. Que corrompido el nombre mecitli en mexitli, y olvidado aquél, se llamó la ciudad México.
We should point out that scholars have disputed the etymology of the word Mexico for many years, the two most common interpretations relating to ‘in the navel of the moon’ or to ‘in the navel of the maguey plant’.
Sources/references:-
• Gordon Whittaker (2021) Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing, University of California Press
• Alfredo López Austin (2001) ‘Aztec’ in The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, Ed. David Carrasco, OUP, Vol. 1
• Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría (Eds.) (2017) The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, OUP
• Cecilio A. Robelo (1951) Diccionario de Mitología Nahuatl, Mexico, Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 2nd. edition.
Picture sources:-
• Image from the Mapa de Sigüenza downloaded from https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_03247/?r=0.463,0.031,0.597,0.348,0
• Founding of Tenochtitlan image scanned from Códice Durán, Arrendadora Internacional, Mexico DF, 1990
• Photo of painting of Lake Texcoco etc. by Sean Sprague/Mexicolore.
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