Name of Mexico

Common card · No. 221870

Several hypotheses seek to explain the etymology of the name "Mexico" (México in modern Spanish) which dates, at least, back to 14th century Mesoamerica. Among these are expressions in the Nahuatl language such as (in translation), Mexitli ("place in the middle of the century plant") and Mēxihco ("place in the navel of the moon"), along with the currently used shortened form in Spanish, "el ombligo de la luna" ("belly button of the moon"), used in both 21st century speech and literature. Presently, there is still no consensus among experts. There is another version, spread by writer Arturo Ortega Morán, in the sense that the deceased Nahuatl speaker Juan Luna Cárdenas pointed out that the word México comes from the nahuatl word Metzico, and the meaning of the latter is: "The place of the Metzikah, the followers of Metzitli, those who entrusted themselves to the moon." As far back as 1590, the "Orbis Terrarum Typus De Integro Multis in Locis Emendatus" of Petrus Planicus showed that the...

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