Managua was not until the mid-1990s that Managua began to see a resurgence. Managua's population is composed predominantly of mestizos and whites who are mainly of Spanish descent, with a minority being of French, Jewish Nicaraguan, German Nicaraguan, Italian, Russian and Turkish descent. There are two possible origins for the name "Managua". It may have originated from the term "Mana-ahuac", which in the indigenous Nahuatl language translates to "adjacent to the water" or site "surrounded by water". Or, it may have come from the Mangue language, where the word "managua" was said to mean "place of the big man" or "chief".
Managua and its economy. To make matters worse, a series of natural disasters, including Hurricane Mitch in 1998, made economic recovery more difficult. After winning the presidential election in 1990, the National Opposition Union began the reconstruction of Managua began in earnest. More than 300,000 Nicaraguans returned from abroad bringing their expertise and needed capital. Businesses mushroomed, new housing projects and schools were constructed, the airport was expanded and modernized, streets were widened, older malls were repaired and new ones were built, and buildings were cleaned up. In 2006, after the Sandinista National Liberation Front came back into power, literacy, health