Quetzalcoatl: Precious Twin?

It is commonly asserted that a possible meaning of the name of the deity Quetzalcoatl is "precious twin". Sometimes it is even claimed that this is the real meaning and that the more commonly given meaning "Feathered Serpent" is false. In this blogpost I take a look at the history of this claim and its validity.

The claim is found in many different places: 

Historian Enrique Florescano states in his 2002 "The Myth of Quetzalcoatl" that "Uniting into one single entity the attributes of the serpent and the bird, metaphorically combining both the germinating powers of the earth and the creative powers of the sky, the Plumed Serpent became synonymous with the Precious Twin" (p. 147) 

Nahuatl translator John Bierhorst states in his 1974 "Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature" takes it as an example of the multifaceted meanings of Nahuatl metaphors: "The name Quetzalcoatl means literally "plumed serpent" from quetzalli, feather of the precious green quetzal, and coatl , a snake". ... A particularly ingenious reinterpretation, involving a double pun, transforms "bird-snake" into "precious twin", an epithet of the morning star considered the twin of the evening star (quetzal = "quetzal" or "precious", coatl = "snake" or "twin")" (p. 4)

The idea is not new either, in 1908 anthropologist H. Beyer published an article about the "symbolic meaning of the dog in ancient Mexico" in which he stated that  "Xolotl is the twin-brother of Quetzalcoatl, and vice versa. Therefore Xolotl became the 'god of the twins', and Quetzalcoatl’s name can be translated not only as 'plumed serpent' but also as 'precious twin'.”

And in the more extreme form denying the meaning "plumed serpent" it is found in discussion fora on the internet:  "Another lie. Quetzalcoatl was not white, he made no prophecy, he didn’t promise to return, and his name does not mean ‘feathered serpent.’ The name means ‘precious twin’. The myth that Quetzalcoalt promised to return is a total fabrication--a post-conquest myth contrived by Spanish missionaries to facilitate their conversion of Indians." (2012 discussion forum)

So lets look a bit at what the evidence for this secondary meaning actually is.

Everyone agrees that the name Quetzalcoatl is composed of two roots quetzalli /ketzal-li/ and coatl /ko:wa-tl/.  What is less clear is what exactly the meanings of those two words are.

Related to the verb quetza /ketza/ "to stand/put upright", the meaning of the word quetzalli is given by Molina as "pluma rica, larga y verde" (Long, green, rich feather). The relation probably refers to the way that feathers stand up from the skin of the bird. In the Florentine Codex we find sentences such as "in quetzalli īhuān in nepapan tlazohihhuitl " (the quetzalli and the other precious feathers),  or the description of the feather seller at the market "quināmaca in quetzalli in chīlchōtic, in tzicoliuhqui, in pilihhuitl"  (he sells the quetzalli, the chili-green-colored, the curved, the young feathers) and "ca ixachi inin tōtōtl īquetzallo" (they are huge that bird's feathers) (I have the examples from the Florentine from Wimmer's dictionary under the entry "quetzalli"). This should show adequately that the meaning is primarily related to a particular kind of long green feather which is highly valuable for decorative purposes.  According to Sahagun the metaphorical usages of the word quetzalli were as a reference to an unborn child, and as a form of address when addressing the Tlatoani "Quetzallé!". This does suggest that it was used to express feelings of deep appreciation similar to calling somone "my treasure" or "my jewel". However I have found no examples of usages of "quetzalli" as modifier with the meaning "precious". In compounds it always seems to refer directly to the quetzal feather itself , e.g. quetzalcomitl "a recipient for holding feathers" or quetzalcopilli "feathered headdress" (one possible exception is the word quetzalitztli, describing a kind of precious stone, but I wonder if we can assume that quetzal- necessarily means "precious" in the Nahuatl word, it might well refer to some other property of the stone, perhaps a green color - or to the original literal meaning of quetzalli as "something that stands upright"). 

The word coatl /ko:wa:tl/ (with the plural form cocoua /ko:ko:waʔ/) however clearly has two meanings, "snake" and "twin". Molina gives it in several instances both in the Spanish and Nahuatl parts of his vocabulario: 
- Geminos,hermanos nacidos de vn vientre. - Cocoua.

- Mellizo - coatl

- Cocoa - culebras o mellizos.

- Coatl.- culebra,mellizo,o lombriz del estomago
The usage of "twin" lives on in Mexican Spanish as cuate "twin/close friend".

So half the translation holds, Quetzalcoatl could be translated as "feather twin", which would not be weird given the fact that he is described as being the twin of the dog-deity xolotl, and that he was related to the planet venus which was considered a twin-star with different twins appearing in the evening and the morning.

But where does the "precious" aspect come into play? How and when was it suggested that the word for "precious feather" could be used to mean simply "precious".

Here we have to go even further back in the literature. 

Jacques Lafaye in his "Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe" points us to a manuscript called El Fénix de Occidente: Santo Tomas descubierto con el nombre de Quetzalcoatl written by the Jesuit Manuel Duarte in the second half of the 17th century (Lafaye argues that it was not written by Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora to whom the text is usually attributed).  In this manuscript Duarte was determined to demonstrate that the native people of New Spain were not strangers to the Christian Gospel. Many friars had a hard time believing that God could have left an entire hemisphere devoid of his word for 1500 years, and they looked for signs to suggest that  they had in fact been subject to evangelization which they had then subsequently forgotten.

Duarte was convinced that Saint Thomas the apostle, who was known to have preached in India, had also reached the West Indies, and converted the natives to Christianity and he looked for all the evidence that he could find for this thesis. In the myths of Quetzalcoatl he found exactly what he was looking for. The idea that Quetzalcoatl was in fact St. Thomas had already circulated among the Franciscans and Dominicans (e.g. Diego Durán)  as a quiet heresy, but Duarte made it explicit. He argued that apart from the ways that the figure of Quetzalcoatl as bringer of knowledge and light, and his relations to the human prince called Topiltzin suggested that the myth had its origin in the figure of of a religious man, the very name of Quetzalcoatl was indeed the same as St. Thomas. He derived the name Thomas from the Greek form of the Aramaic name תָּאוֹמָא (Ta'oma') which means "twin", corresponding also to the greek didymus "twin".  Here was a clear correspondence between the two! But what about the Quetzal part? What did that respond to?  It seems that Duarte in his eagerness to make the two parts fit, considered quetzalli with its connotations of appreciation and value corresponded to the title "Santo" (Saint/Holy). Quite a stretch when you think about it. 

The idea of Quetzalcoatl being a European Christian missionary is also found in the work of Bartolomé de las Casas, who nonetheless does not give the translation "precious twin" or suggest that it wa specifically St. Thomas. Rather Las Casas states that Quetzalcoatl refers to a certain kind of snake which has a feather on top of its head, and which is mostly found in the tropical province of Xicalango.

So no, Quetzalcoatl, cannot and does not translate to "precious twin", 

The idea behind this translation can be traced back to the millenarian heresy of the Franciscans (which is also the origin of the erroneous ideas that Quetzalcoatl was blonde, and that he promised to return and that the Aztecs thought that Cortés was the returning Quetzalcoatl/St. Thomas). It is extremely unlikely that any native Nahuatl speaker in the 16th or 17th century would have considered Duarte's etymology to make any sense. They might have accepted the idea of coatl as a double entendre connoting subtly his status as a twin, but it is unlikely that they would ever consider quetzalli to mean anything other than "precious green feather". So indeed they must have thought of the deity Quetzalcoatl as being characterized by plumage, and to have the dual aspect of a twin and a snake. 

Thus it is not surprising to look at the way Quetzalcoatl was depicted in the codices, either as a snake or a man, but in both cases decorated by long, rich green feathers.

[Thanks to the readers of the Nahuat-l listserv 

who responded to a query of mine regarding this issue, 

and pointed me on the way towards the facts. 
I have also made some corrections in 
response to comments from the list.]

Quetzalcoatl as Snake in Codex Telleriano Remensis

Quetzalcoatl as human in Codex Telleriano Remensis

Decline of Nahuatl in Morelos (part II)

In my previous post I argued that the state of Morelos was predominantly Nahuatl speaking in 1910. As we know, that is not the case anymore.

In this post, I use three sources to show the decline of Nahuatl in Morelos from 1897 to 2014 graphically.

The earliest source is an 1897 Nahuatl wordlist compiled by Antonio Peñafiel, on the map I plot in all the communities where he collected Nahuatl vocabulary. As a minimum we know that there were Nahuatl speakers in those locations in 1897. In 1941 anthropologist Robert Barlow was involved in a project meant to teach Nahuatl language literacy to the Nahua of Morelos. He tested a group of teachers and the locations of the towns where they were from is plotted in on the map. In 1976 Karen Dakin and Diane Ryesky surveyed Nahuatl in Morelos and found Nahuatl speakers in a couple of communities that I haven't put on this map yet, in Axochiapan and Atlacholoayan. And then today Nahuatl is spoken in 6 communities of which Cuentepec is the only one where it is the main community language spoken by all age groups. In Tenextepango in the municipality of Ayala, the speakers are all originally from Guerrero who arrived in the state within the past 40 years.

I have plotted the towns into this map of the state of Morelos, using different colors to distinguish the age of the last attestation of Nahuatl spoken in the locality in the sources I use. They give a visual representation of the process of decline, starting from the lowlands that were most severely affected by the violence of the revolution. 

Today revitalization efforts are undertaken in Hueyapan,  Xoxocotla, Tetelcingo, Sta. Catarina, Ayala/Tenextepango, and in Coatetelco - so the map may look different 50 years form now again.

Here is my map (please don't use it without attribution to me):

Of Statistics, Lies and Genocide: How many Nahuas lived in Morelos before the Revolution?

[This post is based on work in progress, so if you would like to cite the material or argument, please contact me by email first to get the most recent version of the argument, and my permission]

The way that statistics can be used to create reality is well known, and so is the way that censuses can be used to make inconvenient segments of the population look less significant than their actual numbers suggest. Many Native American scholars have made incredible efforts trying to create realistic estimates of indigenous American populations at different times in history (Russell Thornton's work is particularly excellent). But this endeavor is always difficult due to the challenges of finding out how well census data actually represents native populations. 

A group of Zapatista soldiers.
Pedro Lavana came from the Nahua
community of Hueyapan, Morelos.
Courtesy of the Casasola Collection.

In this post (based on a part of the history chapter of my dissertation), I look at how the indigenous Nahua population of Morelos has been counted and represented before during and after the Mexican Revolution. This is an important topic because it speaks to the question of how much indigenous involvement was a part of the Zapatista movement. Since the seminal study of John Womack "Zapata and the Mexican Revolution" (1969), the consensus has been that the Zapatista movement was primarily a mestizo agrarian rebellion. But in this post I aim to demonstrate this to be completely false. Womack based his idea of the rebellion on a misreading of census data that caused him to vastly underestimate the indigenous element of the population of Morelos in 1910. 

Womack (1969:71) dedicates but a footnote to the ethno-linguistic composition of Morelos at the turn of the 20^th century, and to the question of Zapata's possible relation with the Nahuatl language. He cites a 1962 UNAM master's thesis in geography that analyses census data in Morelos from 1900 to 1930. From this work, which I have not been able to consult, he extracts the information that Nahuatl speakers only made up 9.29% of the population of Morelos at the time the Revolution broke out. He also cites Sotelo Inclán's description of Zapata traveling to the village priest in Tetelcingo to get his help in deciphering the ancient Nahuatl titles of Anenecuilco, as evidence that Zapata did not know a word of Nahuatl. He claims that when the morelenses heard Madero's statement that he would return the lands appropriated by the haciendas to the indians, they interpreted “indian” to be simply the way city people referred to the rural peasantry but that they otherwise did not recognize their state as particularly Indian.

The 1900 Mexican census did collect data about indigenous languages spoken. So far Womack is on the right track. The census questionnaire (which is available online here) provided a field with the title “Idioma nativo o lengua hablada”, the instructions to the person administrating the census stated clearly the procedure for filling out the field: 

“En la columna 11 debe escribirse el nombre de la lengua nativa ó hablada comunmente, como castellano, francés, inglés, etc., ó bien el nombre del idioma indígena, como por ejemplo el mexicano ó nahuatl, el zapoteco, el otomí, el tarasco, el maya, el tzendal, el huasteco, el totonaco, etc., etc. A la persona que hable el castellano y un idioma indígena, como el otomí ó el mexicano ó cualquier otro, se le anotará de preferencia el castellano.” [In column 11 should be noted the name of the native or commonly spoken language, such as Spanish, French English etc. Or also the name of the indigenous language, such as Mexicano or Náhuatl, Zapotec, Otomí Tarascan, Maya, Tzeltal, Huastec, Totonac etc. For the person who speaks Spanish and an indigenoys language such as Otomi, Mexicano or any other, Spanish will be noted by preference. (my emphasis).]

 These instructions meant that for bilingual persons only Spanish should be noted, which in turn means that the percentage figure given for speakers of Nahuatl includes only monolingual Nahuatl speakers, whereas bilingual Nahuas (and any ethnic Nahuas who did not speak the language) are counted as Spanish speakers. In 1900 using this way of counting, the number of speakers of indigenous languages was 16,9% monolingual Nahuatl speakers. Today, there are few communities with percentages of monolingual speakers of indigenous languages as high as 16% and in those communities the vast majority of inhabitants tend to speak Nahuatl as a first language and Spanish as a second language. Towns with similar numbers of monolinguals are found in for example in the Zongolica region, where census figures today suggest that a breakdown of 10% monolinguals would correspond well to a demographic composition with 10-20% monolingual speakers of Spanish and 70-80% Spanish/Nahuatl bilinguals. Given that the state of Morelos had 161,000 inhabitants in 1900, that would suggest a composition with approximately 16,000 monolinguals, and at probably least 100,000 bilingual Nahuas in the state.

However in the 1910 census, which seems to have used the same questionnaire, for some reason the number of Nahuatl speakers in Morelos declined to 9%, only to jump back up to 14% in the 1930 census, the first one after the revolution. There is no record of any events in Morelos in the period that would have plausibly caused the Indigenous population to drop by almost 40% in this ten year period. The same abrupt jump in the reporting of indigenous people is found in most of the states in the 1910 census. This seems to suggest some kind of irregularity with the 1910 census. Probably this means that the census for practical or logistical reasons did not adequately sample the rural population at this time. In any case, the figure of 9% is an anomaly that seems to under represent Nahuatl speakers by about 5%. And at the same time, contrary to what Womack clearly believes, it does not pretend to provide the total number of Nahuatl speakers, only the number of monolingual speakers. 

This of course means that when Womack takes the percentage of monolinguals to refer to the total number of speakers he is vastly underestimating the number of Nahuatl speakers of Morelos. And in contrast to his glib assertion that there were hardly any Indians there, we would be justified in considering at least 70% of the population of 161,000 people to have been Nahuatl speakers. This suggests that contrary to Womack's assertion, it is quite likely that Zapata spoke Nahuatl, and the eyewitness testimony of Doña Luz Jiménez which Womack also ignores, corroborates that he did. 

In the 1930 census the questionnaire gave the possibility of recording two languages, first whether the respondent spoke the national language or not, and then in the second slot which other language they spoke. This means that for 1930 the figure of 14% Nahuatl speakers includes both monolingual and bilingual speakers. The total population of Morelos in 1930 was 130,000, 30,000 less than before the Revolution. Based on the percentages of Nahuatl speakers we can estimate the indigenous population of Morelos at ca. 100,000 in 1910 (possibly more, including both bi- and monolingual speakers), and we can show that after the war it had been reduced to less than 20,000 (also including both mono and bilinguals).

Given the relatively modest decline in the total population from 1910 to 1930 this figure of an 80% indigenous population loss may seem exaggerated. But the population loss is hidden in the censuses because they don't take into account the influx of out-of-state people in the 7 years following the Revolution. The fact that indigenous population loss was much greater than what the raw population figure suggests is also shown by cohort analyses that show that the people counted in 1910 are not the same as the ones counted in 1930. For example of the 90,000 women counted in Morelos in 1910 only 35,000 were counted again in 1930 (McCaa 2003). This points to a drastic decline in native born (mostly Nahuatl speaking) Morelenses and their replacement of people from other states after the war. The argument could be further supported if the portion of Morelos residents born out of state could be shown to have increased drastically from 1910 to 1930, but unfortunately I have not been able to find this piece of information in the census even though the census did ask for state of birth.

This is a clear example of how census data can be used to mask what was essentially a genocidal event, and to mask the participation of indigenous peoples in National history.

*Womack, J. (1969). Zapata and the Mexican revolution. Random House LLC.
*McCaa, R. (2003). Missing millions: the demographic costs of the Mexican revolution. Mexican Studies, 19(2), 392-93

Nahuatl Names: The Nahuatl names in the 1544 census of Morelos

Lots of people are interested in giving their children Nahuatl names. But finding good ones is hard, the few common names such as Cuauhtemoc, Xochitl aren't quite sending the signals many people are interested in anymore.

But there is very little work done on Nahuatl naming. James Lockhart has a brief analysis of changing naming customs from the early colonial to late colonial period and includes a short list of Nahuatl names in his "Nahuas After the Conquest", but doesnt list nearly as many names as we actually know. Lockhart shows us that across most of Nahua speaking Mexico Nahuatl language names disappear very quickly after the conquest, so the best source of names has to be early documents. To get a sense of what actual common people were named and not just the rulers and nobles it would also be great to have names form some kind of secular everyday context. Luckily we do have that.

In Morelos a large census was carried out in 1544 only 23 years after the invasion when many people were still not baptized and many had lived through the Spanish invasion. We only have three books from this census describing all the families in a number of small communities in Northern Morelos. They are full of names, because every household and its inhabitants are mentioned as well as what they were paying in tribute to the Marques del Valle (Hernan Cortes). This means that in this census we have a large collection of actual names of men, women and children, names that we know were in use right around the time of the Spanish Invasion.

In the following I give a list of many of the names in the census of the communities Huitzillan and Cuauhchichinollan, as published by ethnohistorian Sarah L. Cline, UCLA, 1993. (Read more about the censuses here)

 There are 134 male names, 35 female names and 30 of unknown gender.

I give the names in a standardized "classical" orthography, followed by my interpretation of their full phonological form (sometimes the words appear to be abbreviated or to have sounds missing), and my interpretation of their meaning. The meanings of proper names are not alays clear, so if I have no idea what a name might mean I dont add anything, if I have an idea but am not really sure I add my idea followed by a question mark, and if I am pretty sure about a meaning I just give the meaning.

For some names it is clear from the context that they are either for males or females, but for others, especially those of unmarried children, it is not always possible to be certain if a name is a male name or not. One striking thing is that there is much more variability in male names than in female names, five names account for almost all of the women in the census, necahual, tecapan, teicuh, tlaco and xoco. Teicuh means "someone's older sister", tlaco probably means "middle sibling/daughter".

Necahual is translated as "survivor" around the internet, but this meaning is definitely not a literal one, and I wonder where it comes from. The name clearly comes from the verb cahua "to leave" with an indefinite reciprocal prefix so the meaning of necahua would be "people leave each other". Molina gives the word necahualiztli as "despedida" (farewell/parting), but here we don't have the -liztli ending but a -lli ending that usually gives a "passive" meaning. So in my opinion the word would mean something like "she who has been left behind" or "she with whom people have parted". This could be interpreted as referring to a survivor of warfare, but why would one name ones child that? And furthermore it seems mainly to be a name of adult married women (there are some young girls with the name though). This makes me think that is a name taken by women who have parted with their families and married into another household. If we stick with the "survivor" meaning the fact that mostly married women have it could suggest that these women were taken as war-captives, but since we don't have any evidence for such a practice among the Nahuas I think we can go with the former interpretation.

Tecapan I am not sure what means, and xoco means "fruit".Although there are other interesting female names, overall men's names seem a lot more imaginative. Men also tend to be named after animals much more frequently. many men's names seem to be calendar names.

It seems that some names are dependent on the persons social status such that some names for small children seem to be baby nicknames, later to be replaced with a real name, and some names seem to describe some kind of experience. Perhaps Nahua personal names changed over their lives times.

Many names are derived from nouns, but lack the absolutive suffix (and also sometimes the agentive suffix -qui). In the morphological form I add these suffix when I believe that is the case, because I think it is taken off optionally when it is used as a personal name or predicate. Other names are derived from verbs and give "active" names describing the person or something they did.

I'll be filling in new meanings and analyses as I go a long looking up the difficult ones. I have half-assedly tried to mark vowel length to help pronunciation, but there are still lots of long ones unmarked.

The source of all these names is:
Cline, Sarah L., ed. The book of tributes: early sixteenth-century Nahuatl censuses from Morelos (Museo de Antropología e Historia, Archivo Histórico, Colección antigua, vol. 549). Vol. 81. University of California at LA, 1993.

Women and girl's names:

Necahual	/nēkāwal/ "farewell/despedida", "someone who has parted"
Teicuh	/tēikw/ "someone's sister"
Tlaco	/tlahko/ "middle"
Xocoyotl	/xokoyotl/  "youngest sibling"
Xochiatlapal	/xochiatlapal/ "flower wing"
Cocoliloc,	/kokolīlok/ "she is hated"
Xoco	/xoko/ “fruit”
Teyacapan	/tēyakapan/ "in front of someone"
Ichpochton	/ichpochtōn/ "little daughter"
Yaoxochitl	/yāōxōchitl/ "enemy flower (a name for marigold)"
Ocoxochi	/okoxōchitl/ "pine flower"
Nahuatl	/nāwatl/ "clear sound"
Tecapan	/tekapan/ ?
Teyauh	/teyawtli/ "marigold/tagetes"
Ilhuicacihuatl	/ilwikasiwātl/ "sky woman"
Teichpoch	/tēichpoch/ "someone's daughter"
Tematlalehua	/tēmatlalewa/ "she bruises people"?
Centehua	/sēntewa/ "owner of one (stone)?"
Xochitl	/xōchitl/ "flower"
Teicuhton	/tēikwtōn/ "little older sister"
Mocel	/mosēl/ "she is alone"
Xilotl	/xilotl/ "young corncob"
Coaxoch	/kōwaxōchitl/ "snake flower"
Cozcamichiuhtecatl	/koskamichiwtekatl/ "fishnecklace person?"
Tlacoehua	/tlahkoēwa/ "she gets/sits up halfway?"
Mauhcaxochitl	/mawkaxōchitl/ "scared flower"
Cihuacocoxqui	/siwākokoxki/ "sick woman"
Papanton	/papantōn/ "little banner"
Tlacoton	/tlahkotōn/ "little half"
Cecihuatl	/sēsiwātl/ "one woman"
Cihuaton	/siwatōn/ "little woman"
Tepi	/tepi-(tōn)/ "tiny"
Cihuanen	/siwānen/ "female walker? (if nen under stood as an abbreviation of nenqui "someone who walks") "woman in vain?' (if nen is understood as related to nen- doing something in vain)'
Chopinton	/chopintōn/ ?

Men and boy's names:

Yaotl	/yāōtl/ "enemy"
Omacatl	/omakatl/ "two reed" (a day of the calenedar, and an epithet of the God Tezcatlipoca)
Tecuetlaza	/tekwehtlasa/ "he throws (like) a Mexican beaded lizard" (if tecue is understood to be Tecueh the mexican beaded lizard, the Mexican cousin of the Gila monster, common in Morelos)
Itzcuin	/itskwin/ "dog", maybe a day-sign name
Xochiquen	/xochikemitl/ "flower garment"
Yaquica	/yaquisa /yakika/ of unkown meaning or pehaps /ya(o)kisa/ "he goes to war"
Quenmachoc	/kenmachok/ ?
Matlalihhuitl	/matlalihwitl/ "purple feather"
Quauhtli	/kwawtli/ "eagle" maybe a day-sign name
Teuhcatl /	tewkatl/ "dust person"
Coatl	/kōwatl/ "snake", maybe a day-sign name
Quaquauh	/kwakwaw/ "horn"
Pantli	/pantli/, "banner", maybe a daysign name
Huehuetl	/wēwetl/ "old one", maybe an age related name
Acotlehuac	/ahkotlewak/? "toasted shoulder?" if tlewak is understood as an abbreviation of tlehuacqui "toasted".
Temilo	/temilo/ "he is filled up"? If interpreted as the verb temi "fill up" in the impersonal/passive form
Tecocoa	/tēkokoa/ "he hurts people"
Yaquin	/yakin/ ?
Tlatlazaloc	/tlahtlasalok/ "he has been thrown"
Tlapoca	/tlapoka/ "he smokes"
Quauhtemoc	/kwawtemok/ "he descended eagle-like"
Poton	/potonki/ "he stinks" (interpreted as abbreviation of potonqui)
Pacoatl	/pahkōwatl/ "medicine snake"
Olopatzicatl	/olopatzikatl/ olotl is the hard core of the corn cob, tzikatl is an ant, I have no idea how to fit the pa in or what the meaning would be.
Mimich	/mimich/ "little fish"
Cihuacoatl	/siwakōwatl/ "woman snake" (a noble title)
Nacxitl	/nakxitl/ This word is of unkown meaning, but probably contains the word ikxitl "foot", it is famous as one of the names of the legendary ruler "Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl"
Tototl	/tototl/ "bird"
Tochhua	/tōchwa/ "rabbit owner"
Zolin	/solin/ "quail"
Pihuiyol	/piwiyol/ ?
Nauhyotl	/nawyotl/  "fourth"
Tenicahuehue	/tenikawēweh/
Mito	/mi(h)to/ ?
Axolin	/axolin/ “salamander”? Axolin could be a variant of axolotl “salamander”.
Quiachton	/kiachtōn/ ?
Quauhtlapochin	/kwawtlapochin/
Tlacuiton	/tlakwitōn/ "little taken thing" if from tlacuitl "something taken"
Ecaton	/ekatōn/ "little wind"
Nochhuetl	/nochwetl/ ? Seems to be related to nochtli “cactus fig”
Huehuetecatl	/wēwetekatl/ "old person/person from the ancient place"
Ilcahualoc	/ilkāwalok/ "he is forgotten"
Chichiton	/chichitōn/ "little dog/puppy"
Tenoch	/tenochtli/ "stone cactus"
Telpoch	/telpochtli/ "young man", probably an age related name
Ticocnahuacatl	/tikoknawakatl/ ?
Huecamecatl	/wekamekatl/ ?
Tlilli	/tlilli/ "black ink"
Tetzauh	/tetzawitl/ "wonder/miracle/surprise"
Itzcotocatl	/itzkotokatl/ "cut by obsidian?"
Popocatl	/popokatl/ "smoke person"
Motolinia	/motolinia/ "he torments himself"
Cuilol	/kwilol/
Chichatlapal	/chichatlapal/
Tetepon	/tetepon/ "short one"
Mecahuehue	/mekawēweh/
Quetzal	/ketzalli/ "precious plume"
Mizyaotl	/misyāōtl/ "cat enemy"
Xiuhcozcatl	/xiwkoskatl/ "greenstone necklace"
Acatlo	/akatlo/ ?
Ollacatl	/ōllākatl/ "rubber man"
Chiucnahuacatl	/chikwnāwakatl/ "9 person?"
Huelitl	/wēlitl/ ? Probably related to wēli “be able to” or wēlik “delicious”
Elotl	/ēlotl/ "corn cob"
Huitznahuatl	/witznāwatl/ "person from the south?"
Zacahuehue	/sakawēwe/ "old grass man"?
Chimalpepech	/chimalpepechtli/ "mended shield"
Acopa	/ahkopan/ "upwards"
Tezcacoacatl	/teskakōwakatl/ "mirror snake person"
Toqual	/tokwal/ “our good thing”?
Caltecatl	/kaltekatl/ "house dweller"
Tlilquen	/tlilkemitl/ "black garment"
Tepeyacan	/tepeyakanki/ "mountain leader"
Chalmecatl	/chalmekatl/ "person from chalman (chalma)"
Tlillanhuehue	/tlillanwēwe/ "old man from the ink place"
Milli	/milli/ "cornfield"
Pozon	/posonki/ "boiled one"
Xochihua	/xochiwa/ "flower owner"
Mexicatl	/mexikatl/ "mexican" (Person from Mexihko-Tenochtitlan)
Teuctlamacazqui	/tekwtlamakaski/ "lord priest"
Molotecatl	/molotekatl/ "person from molotlan"
Tlailotlac	/tlailotlak/ "dirty one?"
Yaotlhuehue	/yāōtlwēwe/ "old enemy"
Coyolton	/koyoltōn/ "little bell"
Tecocol	/tekokol/ "someone's anger"
Tlacateotl	tlākatēotl/ "man-god"
Tlilpotonqui	/tlilpotonki/ "he stinks black"?
Cuima	/kwima/ ?
Tlacatecpanecatl	/tlakatekpanekatl/ "Person from the palace"
Nequametl	/nekwāmetl/ "juicy maguey"
Yaonemitl	/yāōnemitl/ "enemy arrow"?
Tenahuac	/tenāwak/ "close to someone"
Aquahuitl	/ākwawitl/ "water tree"
Tlapayauh	/tlapayaw/ "it became dark"
Xochiteotl	/xochiteotl/ "flower god'
Tlohui	/tlowi/ "Buzzard"? If related to tlohtli "Buzzard"
Molotl	/molotl/ ?
Quennel	/kennel/ "like truth"?
Huetl	/wetl/ ? maybe like chatl/chantli this is really a local dialectal variant of huentli "sacrifice/offering" then it would be /wentli/ with the n and last i elided.
Tematl	/tematl/ ?
Cihuatecpanecatl	/siwātekpanekatl/ "person from the women's palace"
Chatl	/chatl/ ? Cline suggests that it is actually chantli /chantli/ "home" based on the way that the manuscript sometimes omits n's and final i's.
Itzmalli	/itsmalli/ "obsidian prisoner"
Tziuhcoatl	/tsiwkōwatl/
Epcoatl	/epkōwatl/ Name is known as a noble name, but the meaning is unclear
Cozauh	/kosawtli/ "weasel"
Xolotecatl	/xolotekatl/ "person from Xolotlan"
Tenan	/tenan/ I think this is most likely an abbreviation of tenamitl "fortification", otherwise it would mean "someone's mother" which seems rather odd for a male name.
Coyotl	/koyotl/ "coyote"
Xochinahual	/xochināwal/ "flower sorcerer"
Cihuapan	/siwapan/ "on top of women?"
Chicotl	/chikotl/ "bumblebee"
Ihhuitl	/ihwitl/ "feather"
Tonal	/tōnal/ "day"
Mamaz	/mamas/ "little deer?"
Maceuhqui	/masewki/ "he deserved'
Amiztlato	/amistlatoh/ ?
Cecuiztli	/sekwistli/ "cold"
Tequitl	/tekitl/ "work'
Tonecocal	/tonekokal/ ?
Mixcoatl	/mixkōwatl/ "cloud serpent" (Name of a deity)
Ecatl	/ekatl/ "wind"
Quauhtliztac	/kwaktlistak/ "white eagle"
Chalchiuh	/chalchiwitl/ "greenstone"
Tlahtol	/tlahtolli/ "word"
Quahuitl	/kwawitl/ "tree"
Acol	/ahkol/ "shoulder"
Tlahuizcal	/tlawiskal/ "rosy light of dawn"
Tochtli	/tōchtli/ "rabbit"
Xelhuan	/xelwan/ ?
Nencahuitl	/nenkāwitl/ "time in vain"?
Itzmiquiztli	/itzmikistli/ "death by obsidian/sacrifice"
Yopicatl	/yopikatl/ "Me'phaa person" The oto-manguean people called Me'phaa or Tlapanecos in Spanish were called yopi by the Nahuas. Perhaps this person came from the Me'phaa area in Guerrero.
Tozmacue	/tosmakwe/ ?
Tozcuecuexcatl	/toskwekwexkatl/ ?
Macuilhuehue	/makwilwēwe/ "five old man'
Tetlacatl	/tetlakatl/ "stone man'
Tolnahuacatl	/tolnāwakatl/ "person from a place close to reeds"
Mixcoatlailotlac	/mixkoatlailotlak/ ? clearly includes the name of the deity mixcoatl, and what seems to be a word for dirt tlaillotl
Anahuaca	/ānāwakatl/ "person from Anahuac (the Mexico basin)"

Unkown gender:

Cihuacuitlapil	/siwākwitlapil/ "women's tail" probably a nickname for a young child
Quiauh	/kiyawitl/, rain, maybe a day-sign name, probably male
Matlalaca	/matlalakatl/ "purple reed"
Izcahuatl	/iskāwatl/ ?
Qualchamitl	/kwalchamitl/ ?
Nahualquizqui	/nāwalkiski/ "he came out of sorcery?"
Tepiton	/tepitōn/ "little one", probably a nickname for a young child
Tohuacochin	/towakochin/ ?
Ozoma	/osomahtli/ "monkey", maybe a day-sign name, probably male
Ecatlatoa	/ekatlahtoa/ "s/he speaks like wind"
Tlaocoyoa	/tlaokoyoa/ "s/he' is sad"
Cochcanauh	/kochkanawtli/ "sleeping duck?"
Matlal	/matlalli/ "purple"
Metzaol	/metzaol/ "maguey scraping"?
Namiton	/namiktōn/? "little spouse?" probably a nickname for a child
Mocauhqui	/mokāwki/ "s/he left him/herself behind"
Yaotlachinol	/yāōtlachinol/ "destruction of war"
Xihuitl	/xiwitl/ "year/comet/herb"
Tecolotl	/tekolotl/ "owl"
Yecatlahua	/yekatlawa/
Tecuizolli	/tekwizolli/
Huitznecahual	/witznekāwal/
Chicueton	/chikwetōn/
Ixpanton	/ixpantōn/
Ahuilizatl	/awilisātl/
tziuhtla	/tziwtla/
temoc	/temok/ "s/he descended"
chapopo	/chapopo/ “tar”?
Maya	/maya/ ?
acmachquichiuh	/ac mach quichiuh/ “who didnt do anything?”
quauhquimichin,	/kwawkimichin/ "wood mouse"
cipac	/sipaktli/ "crocodile/caiman", maybe a daysign, probably male
pancoz	/pankos/ “yellow banner” if from pamitl+kostik
miquiz,	/mikistli/ "death", maybe a day-sign, probably male
huitziltemoc,	/witziltemok/ "s/he descended colibri-like"