Entry № 6341 · Other origin

Malinalli Malinalli — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ mah-lee-NAH-yee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Other
Meaning
"La Malinche - Aztec interpreter for Cortés + mother of first mestizo"
Syllables
4
First recorded
Ancient (Nahuatl)

A name that means "la malinche - aztec interpreter for cortés + mother of first mestizo".

Malinalli is from the Nahuatl malinalli (grass, twisted thing — 12th day of the Aztec calendar). Malinalli / La Malinche (Doña Marina, c. 1500-c. 1529) was a Nahua interpreter, advisor, and companion of Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-1521). Her role as the Nahuatl-Maya-Spanish interpreter — the linguistic and diplomatic bridge between Cortés and Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II — was a key catalyst of the Spanish conquest. Her son Martín Cortés (born 1522) is considered the first mestizo (mixed European-Mesoamerican heritage) in Mexican history.

Grass / twisted (Nahuatl).

The name in its native script.

Malinalli
Transliteration
Malinalli
Pronunciation
/ ˌmɑː.liːˈnɑː.jiː /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Malinalli stands.

Malinalli does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Malinallis before her.

Real people
Malinalli (La Malinche)
Nahua interpreter for Cortés.
c. 1500 – c. 1529
In fiction
Malinalli
Nahuatl grass / twisted.

Names connected to Malinalli.

The number behind Malinalli.

2

The Peacemaker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Malinalli reduce to 2, The Peacemaker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.