Coahuila

[Frye, David L]

Ignacio Zaragoza was born in Bahia de Espiritu Santo in what was then
the Mexican state of "Coahuila y Texas." The same year he was born,
Bahia was renamed Goliad, and a few years later it became part of Texas.
When Texas broke from Mexico, a big chunks of Coahuila and Tamaulipas
(aka Nuevo Santander) were taken as part of Texas, but Goliad was always
in the Texas part of "Coahuila y Texas." (The town is SE of San
Antonio.) Ignacio Zaragoza grew up in Matamoros and then moved to
Monterrey before going on to national prominence as a general.
 
In response to an earlier message, -teco and -teca are alternative
Spanish versions of the Nahuatl suffix -tecatl, which means "from (a
place)." It is sort of like -an in English: Mexico, America > Mexican,
American. It does not quite mean "people" in itself, but it is quite
often used to create adjectives and nouns to describe the people from a
given place.

For example, "Zacatecas" is the Spanish plural of "Zacateca," from
Nahuatl "Zacatecatl," which means "(people) from Zacatlan." Zacatlan in
turn is zacatl (grass) + the suffix -an (place). So "Zacatecas" are the
people from Zacatlan, the Place of Grass. 

Coahuilteco would most likely be from Coahuiltecatl, "(the people) from
Coahuillan."

It is worth mentioning that Nahuatl speakers gave names to places all
over Mexico, Guatemala, and surrounding areas. The name Coahuila might
come from Nahuatl, but that does not necessarily mean that the people in
Coahuila spoke Nahuatl.