What are the names of Santa’s Reindeer?
That's easy, let me just pick up my copy of “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Moore that I remember my parents reading to me when I was a child…
… That’s right, nearly in the middle of the book Saint Nick addresses his eight reindeer. The page starts:
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away, all!
“Hang on” I hear you say, “that’s wrong! Reindeer number 7 is Donner, not Donder”.
It’s true that as we go to various sites with festive decorations, I see lots of references to “Donner”, but absolutely no references to “Donder” (save in my childhood book).
So, which is correct? Is it Donner or Donder? And why did it change to the other?
To find out, let’s go back to the start. Where, and when, did the first reference to any names of Santa Claus’ reindeers appear?
1823!
On 23rd December 1823 a poem was anonymously published in the Troy Sentinel newspaper called “Account Of A Visit From Saint Nicholas”. A poem that you might know instead by its first line: “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. This is the first reference that I am aware of where the Reindeer that draw Santa Claus' sleigh are given any names.
"[Twas] The Night Before Christmas"? Hey, that’s the name of my book. That means I win and "Donner" is wrong!
… Actually... it’s not that simple!
The poem, as I said, was published anonymously. However, 14 years later, in 1837, Clement Clarke Moore took the credit and claimed authorship. This was never disputed during his lifetime, but after he died it was claimed that Henry Livingston Jr. actually wrote the poem.
Nevertheless, if you actually look at the original publication you will notice a couple of things:
It’s neither Donner, nor Donder, but actually “Dunder”. Also, you may have noticed that the very last reindeer is called “Blitzem”. Dunder and Blitzem are Dutch for “Thunder” and “Lightning”.
So, we’re both wrong!
But how did it change to Donner then?
For that, I need to introduce you to a ninth reindeer. This one gets called all sorts of names including “Ruddy” by other mean reindeer. That’s right, you guessed it “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was first published in 1939 by Robert Lewis May. In this 34-page book the reindeer are addressed as:
COME DASHER! Come Dancer! Come Prancer! Come Vixen!
Come Comet! Come Cupid! Come Donner and Blitzen!
By the time of its publication, reindeer number 7 was being referenced as both Donder and Donner, but due to the immense popularity of May’s poem, the name Donner stuck. Songs and films about Rudolph soon followed and that seemed to seal the deal, in popular culture anyway. My old book, that I referenced at the beginning, was published in 1989 by Walker exclusively for Sainsbury, so it seems that there are a few rebels out there (at least there were in the 80’s!
Is that the end of the story?
Well, not quite.
These two poems were so popular that they have directly shaped Christmas celebrations to this day. Before Moore’s, A Visit From Saint Nicholas, folk traditions of a gift giving entity varied considerably in the west. But Moore’s poem cemented the jolly man with a white beard into the Christmas narrative (the red bit’s another story, but that’s a story for different day). As for Rudolph… well he is everyone’s favourite reindeer after all!
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