Naranjo is an ancient city of the Maya civilization in the Petén Basin region of the central Maya lowlands. It is located in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala west of the border with Belize and is the northern most of the three sites that form the Cultural Triangle with Yaxha and Nakum. The city lies along the Mopan and Holmul rivers. Naranjo was the capital of the most powerful Classic Maya kingdom of Saal. The ancient Classic Maya language name for the city was Wak Kab'nal and Maxam but the distinction between these two is still unclear. The divine owner of the city, its patron, and the founder of the dynasty was a deity with a yet-undeciphered name, nicknamed "Black Square-Nosed Beastie" (possibly read as Ik' Miin)

The history of Saal is highly interesting in terms of several major disturbances in the dynastic rule when allegiances and identities of local kings were subject to change. Nothing is known about the Early Classic history of Naranjo. The sites of La Sufricaya and Holmul to the north of Naranjo were involved in the establishment of the new political order in Peten after the arrival of Siyaj K’ahk' in AD 378. It is plausible to assume that Naranjo might also be under the sway of Siyaj K'ahk's hegemony and later Mutal (Tikal) rulers. If there were any monuments from that time, they were destroyed and/or cached.

Alberto Naranjo [nah-rahn'-ho] (born September 14, 1941) is a musician. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela. His mother, the singer Graciela Naranjo, was a radio, film and television pioneer in her homeland. Largely self-taught, Alberto embarked on a similar musical course, becoming – like his mother – one of Venezuela's icons of contemporary popular music.

In his early years, Naranjo was influenced by diverse music genres such as jazz and classical, from Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington; from Bud Powell to Thad Jones and Mel Lewis; from Béla Bartók to Claude Debussy, and specially, the music created by Tito Puente, one of the greatest all-time Latin jazz leaders. Puente revolutionised the role of the drums in stage performance, when he moved the drum kit and timbales from the back to the front of stage, highlighted it as a solo instrument, and demonstrated that a drummer can also be a gifted composer and arranger.

With Puente as his role model, Naranjo started professionally as a drummer in 1959, at age 18, playing with several local dance bands including Chucho Sanoja (1963–64), Los Melódicos (1965–66) and Porfi Jiménez (1966–67). A valuable sideman as well, he was adaptable to many different styles, being able to fit smoothly into the group in which he were playing. Later in the 1960s, he was focused exclusively in studio sessions becoming one of the sought after musicians in his country.