PLace-names in mexico-TenochTiTLan • 131term was used thenceforth. Any question about its status
as “ciudad” was put to rest with the royal confirmation of a
coat of arms in 1529. The more elaborate title “Muy noble,
insigne y muy leal Ciudad” (very noble, notable, and very
loyal city) was granted by the Crown in 1548, and the Span-
ish cabildo saw it as cause for rejoicing when the official
letter arrived from Valladolid. 7 The honor of the “ciudad”
title was not exclusively a Spanish privilege, and Mexico
was not alone in being an indigenous-majority ciudad: in
the Valley of Mexico, Tetzcoco was named a “ciudad” in
1543, Xochimilco in 1559, and Tacuba (known as Tlacopan
before the Conquest) in 1564. 8 Outside of the valley, Tlax-
cala was also granted the title “La Leal Ciudad de Tlaxcala”
and a coat of arms in 1535, this designation a reward for
the services it rendered to the Spanish during the wars
of conquest. 9 Thus, for indigenous and Spanish residents
alike, the designation “ciudad” showed their importance
within the emergent Spanish hierarchy of urban centers.
Even though the designation of “ciudad” may have been
construed to apply to the Spanish part of the city and used
by its cabildo to describe its domain, the city’s native gov-
ernment also wielded it. That it was not merely a substitute
for, or even coincident with, the Nahuatl term “altepetl”
is made clear by Nahuatl-language documents produced
by the indigenous cabildo where the term “ciudad” remains
untranslated, although on occasion it is attached to the
term “altepetl.” 10
While “ciudad” had a standard and accepted meaning,
as granted by the king, the three appellatives most closely
associated with the city, “ Tenochtitlan,” “ Tlatelolco,” and
“Mexico,” did not. 11 Although we have no pre-Hispanic
manuscripts or books from the city, the Teocalli of Sacred
Warfare, discussed in chapter 2 (see figures 2.14 and 2.15),
shows that the name “ Tenochtitlan,” represented glyphi-
cally on the back face of the Teocalli by a nochtli (prickly-
pear cactus) that rises from the body of Chalchiuhtlicue,
was used to represent the city or some part of it in the pre-
Hispanic period. The Codex Mendoza confirms that a very
similar glyphic form was used at the time of its creation,
around 1542 (see figure 1.3). The glyphic sign most likely
refers just to the southern part of the island city that we
commonly think of as Tenochtitlan, because the political
history that follows is concerned with those rulers who
created an empire from Tenochtitlan, while the conquered
Tlatelolco is shown as a separate entity in the page that
chronicles its conquest. However, there is a slight uncer-
tainty. On folio 2r of the Codex Mendoza, two of the tribal
leaders (Ocelopan and Xomimitl) who gather around the
glyphic sign (they are shown at ten o’clock and four o’clock,
respectively) are named in other accounts as Tlatelolco
leaders. 12 Could the first page of the Codex Mendoza be
referencing both Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco in its open-
ing image? We might recall that the Codex Mendoza was
almost certainly created in Tenochtitlan, and when it was
created, Tlatelolco was once again asserting its indepen-
dence from Tenochtitlan. Thus the inclusion of Tlatelol-
co’s leaders on its first page may register a post-Conquest
attempt by Tenochtitlan’s leaders to stake a claim to the
entire island.
The names “ Tenochtitlan” and “ Tlatelolco” were first
transliterated into the Latin alphabet in the letters of Cor-
tés, albeit in somewhat bastardized form. Writing in the
1520s, Cortés was aware that the city had two parts, but he
nonetheless referred to the entire location as “ Temixtitan,”
his rendering of “ Tenochtitlan” and a name that reflected
the pre-Hispanic political dominance that Tenochtitlan
held over its northern counterpart after the 1473 conquest.
Thus, “ Tenochtitlan” (no matter how it was spelled) by
the early 1520s could either designate just the southern
altepetl or be inclusive of Tlatelolco. An added layer of
meaning comes with the addition of “Mexico.” In his 1522
letter to Charles V, Cortés described the tribute-paying
polities beyond the valley as the “provinicias de México
y Temixtitan,” and his use of the word “México” in this
context is largely coincident with what in modern times
we would consider the domain of the Triple Alliance, the
three Nahuatl-speaking polities in the valley that headed a
tribute empire. Cortés did not use “Mexico” as a name for
the entire island or the city at this point. Neither did the
Spanish cabildo members, who, following Cortés, used the
name “la grand Cibdad de Temixtitan” beginning with their
first records in 1524. By 1529, however, we find the Spanish
cabildo using “la cibdad de temistitán méxico”—tacking on
the second name. They do not explain their rationale for
doing so, but it may be that they, like Cortés, understood
“México” as a more expansive term. Their adoption of it
went hand in hand with their attempt to control not only
the island city, but also the area within fifteen leagues of
it, an area that encompassed the larger valley and beyond.
They continued to use this long form of the city’s name
(Temistitan-Mexico) until the mid-1530s, as did other
bodies in the city, like the Real Audiencia and the Epis-
copal Inquisition. Over the course of the 1530s, the cabildo
gradually dropped the use of “ Temixtitan” or “ Temistitan,”