Atl Icholoayan (Mdz23r)

The deer's leg is apparently meant to conjure up the verb to jump or flee, choloa, but as a metaphor for the action of water going over a waterfall. The third person singular possessor (i-) suggests that this place is the water's jumping or fleeing place. There is also a noun, achololli, which is where the water is released to fill the agricultural furrows. The noun achololli--and probably the verb choloa--also has a role in the place name for Cholollan (contemporary Cholula, Puebla). (See: Federico Fernández Christlieb and ‎Angel Julián García Zambrano, Territorialidad y paisaje en el altepetl del siglo XVI, 2006, 315.) Furthermore, Berdan and Anawalt cite J. Cooper Clark in their study of The Codex Mendoza (1992, v. 1, p. 173), who said that the word achololli had entered Spanish as acholole and was still in use in the twentieth century in Morelos.

The locative suffix -yan [or -yān, showing the vowel length] is one that attaches to verbs and indicates customary action. [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript.] So, it is a place where the jumping (or spurting) of water occurs regularly.