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Editor’s note: The Journal continues “What’s in a Name?,” a twice a month column in which staff writer Elaine Briseño will give a short history of how places in New Mexico got their names.
Enchant: to influence by or as if by charms and incantation, bewitch; to attract and move deeply; rouse to ecstatic admiration
These are definitions according to Merriam-Webster but the word has deeper meaning for New Mexicans.
For decades, the country’s 47th state has been known as the Land of Enchantment. It’s sometimes hard to explain the allure of New Mexico to new arrivals and those who have never been here, but alluring it is, despite often finding itself on the bottom of one list or another.