Malinalli is from the Nahuatl malinalli (grass, twisted thing — 12th day of the Aztec calendar). A modern American baby name in the broader Nahuatl-Mesoamerican heritage aesthetic. 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). Born to a Nahua noble family in the Coatzacoalcos region, sold into slavery, given as a gift to Cortés by the Tabasco Maya in March 1519. 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. Subject of Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) and paintings by José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera.
Featured throughout Nahuatl heritage and Mexican history.
Malinalli reduces to five.