Santa's reindeer names and where they come from

4 November 2026

Santa's nine reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. The first eight come from the poem "A Visit from St Nicholas" ("'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), first published in 1823; Rudolph joined in 1939, in a story written for an American department store.

The names of Santa's reindeer

Where do the reindeer names come from?

The eight original reindeer were named in a poem published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel, a newspaper in Troy, New York, on 23 December 1823. Its proper title is "A Visit from St Nicholas", though almost everyone knows it by its opening line, "'Twas the night before Christmas". The poem was later credited to Clement Clarke Moore, who included it in his own collection of poems in 1844.

In the poem, St Nicholas calls his "eight tiny rein-deer" by name as they land on the roof. The poem also fixed much of the modern picture of Santa: a sleigh on the rooftop, a trip down the chimney, stockings filled in silence, and a "right jolly old elf" who laughs, winks and flies away. It is out of copyright, and you can read the full text at Wikisource.

Is it Donner or Donder? Blitzen or Blixem?

Both, depending on the year. In the 1823 printing, the last two reindeer were "Dunder and Blixem" – from a Dutch exclamation of the time meaning "thunder and lightning". The spellings drifted in later reprints: Blixem became Blixen in an 1825 almanac, Dunder became Donder in an 1837 anthology, and by the time Moore published the poem himself in 1844 the pair were "Donder and Blitzen". Many later reprints simplified Donder to Donner – the German word for thunder, just as Blitz is German for lightning. So the pair have been thunder and lightning all along.

What does each name mean?

• Dasher – quick and dashing, the speedy one.
• Dancer – light on its hooves.
• Prancer – lively and high-stepping.
• Vixen – a female fox; also used for a spirited woman.
• Comet – a streak across the night sky.
• Cupid – the Roman god of love.
• Donner – thunder.
• Blitzen – lightning.
• Rudolph – a German name; the story chose it for the reindeer with the shining red nose.

The poem gives the reindeer no personalities beyond their names, so families are free to invent them. Children often love deciding which is the fastest, the cheekiest or the sleepiest – a fun detail to slip into a letter from Santa.

Where did Rudolph come from?

Rudolph was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter at the American department store chain Montgomery Ward, for a free Christmas booklet given to shoppers. Accounts put the number handed out in 1939 at around 2.4 million copies. In 1947 the company gave the copyright to May.

May's brother-in-law, the songwriter Johnny Marks, turned the story into the song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Gene Autry's recording was released for Christmas 1949 and became a huge hit. The song's opening lines list the original eight reindeer, which is a big reason why so many people can still name them. Rudolph's story – a misfit whose glowing nose saves Christmas on a foggy night – made him the most famous reindeer of all, at the front of the team.

Do real reindeer have antlers at Christmas?

Real reindeer are unusual among deer because both males and females grow antlers. Males usually shed theirs in early winter, after the autumn rut, while females tend to keep theirs through the winter. That has led to a popular observation that reindeer with antlers on Christmas Eve are more likely to be female. You can see reindeer in Britain too: the Cairngorm herd in Scotland is Britain's only free-ranging reindeer herd, according to the conservation charity PTES.

Fun ways to use the reindeer names

• Learn them in order. Saying them in the order of the poem – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen – is a fun Christmas memory test. Add Rudolph at the front.
• Name the carrots. Leave one carrot labelled for each reindeer on Christmas Eve.
• Reindeer of the day. In a Christmas countdown, pick a reindeer each day and invent a fact about it.
• Read the poem. Reading "A Visit from St Nicholas" at bedtime on Christmas Eve is a lovely tradition.