personal name, taken from Tezcatlipoca (a major deity) (see Karttunen)
Orthographic Variants:
tēzcatlepōca, Tezcatlipoca
IPAspelling:
teːskɑtɬepoːkɑ
Frances Karttunen:
TĒZCATLEPŌCA personal name Tezcatlipoca (a major deity) / gran dios mexicano (S) [(1)Bf.10r]. Conventionally this is written with I in the third syllable, but in the single attestation the vowel is E and is specifically marked short. A commonly accepted analysis of this name takes PŌCA to be a constituent modifying TĒZCA-TL 'mirror' with the sense 'smoking.' Although PŌC is a stem form of PŌCH-TLI 'smoke,' there is no corresponding verb PŌCA. However, for reflexive IHPŌTZ(A) 'to belch,' there should be a corresponding intransitive verb IHPŌCA 'to give forth an exhalation,' conceivably 'to give forth smoke.' T has E for initial I in IHPŌTZ(A), so its corresponding intransitive would be EHPŌCA. B's attestation, however, specifically excludes a glottal stop. S provides a lengthy description of Tezcatlipoca drawn from Sahagún. See TĒZCA-TL. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 239.