About this site

Mexican Name Finder is a free reference for Mexican given names, surnames, nicknames, and place names. It covers 446 given names, 43 god and legend names, and 140 surnames, each with a meaning, an origin language, a word-by-word breakdown, and a pronunciation for English readers.

How it is made

The work here is editorial rather than that of native speakers: gathering what the dictionaries and the etymological references say, showing the parts of each name, and marking clearly where the sources disagree or where a popular meaning is invented.

How meanings are decided

Spanish-tradition names (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Germanic, Arabic) follow the standard etymological references, chiefly Behind the Name and Wiktionary. Nahuatl names are checked against the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl of UNAM and the Wired Humanities Nahuatl Dictionary; Maya names against the Cordemex dictionary. Where a name's popular meaning has no support in those sources, the page says "folk etymology" and gives the best-supported reading instead. Yaretzi, Itzayana, Itzel, and Zyanya are the best-known examples.

Popularity scores are editorial estimates from INEGI birth data and RENAPO's counts of the population, on a scale of 1 (rare) to 5 (among the top names for newborns). The popular names page reproduces the official lists with links to the reports that carried them.

Corrections

If you are a speaker of Nahuatl or Maya, a linguist, or simply someone who knows a name better than this site does, please send a correction. Corrections are applied with a note on the page.