As the Spanish speakers did not have the “tz” sound in their language, they heard the “Malinchi” or sometimes “Malinche.” Thus when they did not call her “doña Marina,” they called her “Malinche,” and so she has remained to historians ever since. What the Spaniards found disorienting was that to the various groups they dealt with, this woman seemed to be the most important member of their party. They did not even seem to see Jerónimo de Aguilar, and they called Hernando Cortés himself “Malinche,” as if her name must be his name, too, though the Spaniards felt it should have been the other way
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