This is complicated etymologically. Mexican Spanish has a form toloque for lizard. Santamaría (1992:1065) specifies the meaning as follows: “Nombre vulgar que en Tabasco se da a una especie de lagartija común, o passaríos que tiene la propiedad de alzar y bajar la cabeza como en gesto de saludo; por lo cual se da este nombre como apodo a las personas que tienen la costumbre de mover mucho la cabeza en tal forma.”
Other Mayan forms are
Poqomchi’ toohlok ~ tahluak
Tzeltal jt’ohlok
Yucatec tóolok.
Santamaría (1992:1065) indicates that the Spanish form comes from “maya tolok”, but also cites an etymology according to which the form is a passive participle of Nahuatl /to:loa/, which, according to Molina (1977), means "abajar o inclinar la cabeza." It is correct that such a derivation could yield /to:loki/ "someone who bends his head". The irregular /t’/ in Tzeltal points to a borrowing, as does the added final /k/ in Q'eqchi'. If the original form ended in a vowel the Q'eqchi' final /k/ can be explained as a way for this language to avoid the phonotactically dispreferred final vowel, just as other Mayan languages could be said to have deleted the final vowel for the same reason. The Spanish form toloque cannot be used as direct evidence that there was a final vowel, since Spanish, in a way opposite of the Mayan languages, disprefers final consonants and could thus have added an epenthetic vowel.
There clearly must have been an /h/ or a sound perceived as such in the borrowed form, and it must have been borrowed early enough for Yucatec to have developed /óo/ from /oh/. All this would point to a Nahuatl form *tohloki. No such form is attested in Classical Nahuatl. Perhaps an early Nahuatl form of to:loa was tohloa or at least was pronounced so as to be perceived this way--a devoicing towards the end of the long vowel?
