Culture & Local Life
Jovel, more strongly supported as Jobel in linguistic sources, is a local name for San Cristóbal de las Casas and the Valle de Jovel. INALI and a Tsotsil dictionary connect Jobel with paja/zacate; Jovel remains common in Spanish use, while longer tourist explanations such as “place in the clouds” are not confirmed.
Not in the same sense as the city's documented Spanish administrative names such as Villa Real de Chiapa or Ciudad Real de Chiapa.
Jovel/Jobel belongs to a different linguistic and cultural history. For the sequence of official colonial and republican names, see A Short History of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
The safest answer is narrower than many online explanations.
INALI explicitly states that Jobel comes from Tsotsil “paja, zacate.” Laughlin's Tsotsil dictionary independently records jobel as la paja, el zacate and also as San Cristóbal de las Casas.
From those sources, it is reasonable to say the name is linguistically connected with grass/straw. It is more speculative to turn that connection into a longer English phrase such as “place of grass,” “grassland,” “meadow,” or “place in the clouds” unless a source specifically establishes that derivation.
A decorative translation should not be presented as definitive.
The word remains part of local naming and regional vocabulary.
Academic publications still use Valle de Jovel, and businesses and institutions in San Cristóbal use the form Jovel in their names. One current example in the local directory is Instituto de Lenguas Jovel.
The existence of a modern business called Jovel does not prove the word's etymology; it simply shows that the name remains in active local use.
These related terms answer neighboring questions without treating them as synonyms: