NacalliPaz...

[Miss~Amelia]

Hi everyone,

Never posted here, but couldn't resist this one! My step-mother's niece is having a baby boy and is naming him 'NacalliPaz' (yes, spelled with the 'P' capitalized) I guess it's pronounced Nah-ca-lee-Pas... She says it means "Battle for Peace" (which is kinda like an oxymoron right?!) I've searched everywhere and can't find info on this name anywhere! Anyone have a clue to its origon and to whether it's meaning is correct? I'm just really curious... :shuffle: TIA - Marissa

[ClaudiaD]

Paz is the Spanish word for "peace," so that part makes sense. Nacalli doesn't seem to be Spanish, though. My first thought was that it might be a Nahuatl word. (Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs, and a few Nahuatl words such as Citlalli are now used as first names, especially in Mexico.) But I couldn't find Nacalli in a Nahuatl-English dictionary, and none of the words meaning "battle" are anything like it.

By Googling I did find a few people with the surname Nacalli who seem to be Spanish-speakers. Perhaps it comes from another Native American language. Could you ask your stepmother where your niece got the name?

[liren]

My first thought was that it could be Nahuatl because of Paz being Spanish, and because it's so similar to Naucalli (famous place in Mexico), which is Nahuatl and means 'four houses' (from nahui-, 'four', and -calli, 'house'.) I searched but nacalli only shows up as part of a couple of other words, none related to battle/war (for example tlamanacalli, meaning 'temple'.) So it's most likely another language.

I know some Taíno and a little Mapuche (both Native American laguages) and Nacalli doesn't look like it's either one to me (but I could be wrong.) Sorry I can't be of more help.