Santa's reindeer names, in order (and what they mean)
Santa's eight reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, named in an 1823 poem. A ninth joined in 1939, in a department store's giveaway booklet.
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Santa has eight reindeer in the poem that named them: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. They first appeared in "A Visit from St. Nicholas," printed without a byline in a Troy, New York, newspaper on December 23, 1823. The ninth one, the one with the nose, arrived 116 years later.
Below: what every name means, why Donner was spelled Dunder at first, the antler fact that makes the team either girls or teenagers, and how our family ended up pulling the sleigh while the dog drove.
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What are the names of Santa's reindeer, in order?
In the order the poem calls them: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Santa shouts them in two lines of four, which is why everyone remembers them in pairs. Dasher and Dancer. Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid. Donner and Blitzen.
The 1823 printing ran those lines as "Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen, / On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;" so the last pair has been renamed at least twice since. The poem names no lead reindeer and says nothing about who stands next to whom. Every family that has argued about it was arguing about fan fiction.
One more detail people forget: the poem calls them "eight tiny rein-deer" pulling "a miniature sleigh," driven by "a right jolly old elf." The original Santa was small. The reindeer were sized to match.
What do the reindeer names mean?
Most of the names describe how they move: fast, bouncy and a little showy. Two come from the sky, one from the god of love, and the last two are a Dutch weather report. The poem gives them no personalities, so we filled in the blanks the way any office would.
| Reindeer | What the name means | Personality (ours, not the poem's) |
|---|---|---|
| Dasher | One who dashes: moves fast | Leaves first, forgets the presents |
| Dancer | One who dances | Does a little shuffle at every rooftop landing |
| Prancer | One who prances: high, springy steps | Checks the reflection in every window |
| Vixen | A female fox, and old slang for a quarrelsome woman | Runs the group chat |
| Comet | A comet, from the Greek for "long-haired," after its glowing tail | Shows up rarely, always dramatically |
| Cupid | The Roman god of love | Signs every card with a heart |
| Donner (Dunder, Donder) | Thunder: donder in Dutch, Donner in German | Loud. Nobody has to ask. |
| Blitzen (Blixem) | Lightning: bliksem in Dutch, Blitz in German | Fastest takeoff, worst parking |
Donner, Donder or Dunder: which spelling is right?
All three, depending on the year. The first printing, in the Troy Sentinel, named the last pair Dunder and Blixem, after a Dutch oath meaning thunder and lightning. Nobody signed the poem. Clement Clarke Moore claimed it in 1844, and some scholars still argue it was written by Henry Livingston, a Dutch-speaking gentleman farmer.
An 1837 reprint changed the pair to Donder and Blixen, apparently so Blixen would rhyme with Vixen. The copies Moore later wrote out by hand say Donder and Blitzen, with Blitz being German for lightning. Columbia Magazine has the whole tangle, authorship fight included: magazine.columbia.edu/article/story-behind-most-famous-christmas-poem-all
Donner, the German word for thunder, took over in the 1900s, and a 1949 hit song used it, which settled things for most people. Write Donder on a card this year and you'll be technically correct and corrected anyway.
How many reindeer does Santa have?
Eight in the poem. Nine if you count the famous addition, Rudolph, who first appeared in 1939 in a giveaway booklet written by Robert L. May, an advertising copywriter at a Chicago department store. The store handed out 2.4 million copies that first holiday season, according to the US Census Bureau: census.gov/about/history/stories/monthly/2019/december-2019.html
He's also the only one of the nine who still belongs to somebody, which is why he stays in this paragraph and off our cards. The original eight turn 203 this Christmas and belong to everyone.
Are Santa's reindeer male or female?
Female, or very young, if you go by the antlers. Reindeer and caribou are the same species, and both bulls and cows grow antlers, which is rare among deer. The biggest bulls shed theirs in late October, while small bulls and cows that aren't pregnant keep them until April, and pregnant cows usually hold on until their calves are born in late May or early June, says the Alaska Department of Fish and Game: adfg.alaska.gov/static/education/wns/caribou.pdf
So by Christmas Eve, the big males are bare-headed. A team in full antlers is cows and teenagers: either Santa runs an all-girl outfit or he hired the youth league. Every sleigh picture you've ever seen, ours included, has been quietly making a point.
How we made the Family Reindeer card
The idea came from a math problem: the poem has eight reindeer and most families have four or five people. So on our card, the family is the team. Everyone wears an antler headband and a red jingle-bell harness and leans into the reins, while the dog sits in the sleigh behind them in a tiny Santa hat, holding the reins in his mouth. The card's joke is "Santa outsourced. The dog got promoted."
Every idea gets tried many times on our test family, who are made-up people: none of them exist. This one went wrong in two very specific ways before it worked.
First, an early take gave grandma the whole reindeer: her face, her headlamp and four hooves. The rule we added that day is still in the card. They are all humans, never animals, standing upright on two legs.
Second, the counting. Four people and a corgi make five photos, and one take decided five photos meant five reindeer, so it drew a second Biscuit, standing upright in harness and antlers like a coworker, while the first one drove. Now the head count on every card is people only, and the last photo is the pet. In the finished card's short video the dog barks once, the team heaves, and the whole sleigh lifts off the snow with their legs still running. Nobody talks: our videos have sound effects only.
Using the reindeer names on a card
- Cast your family. Whoever leaves first is Dasher, the loud one is Donner, and the one who reorganizes the tree after everyone's asleep is Vixen.
- Borrow the poem's rhythm for a sign-off. One of the lines on our reindeer card reads "On Dasher, on Dancer, on... Mom?" and the rest of our Christmas card messages are just as easy to steal.
- Give the dog a title. Ours got Head of Sleigh; yours can have one of these Christmas dog sayings under its photo.
- Keep going after the 25th. Christmas has twelve days, and the 12 days of Christmas have their own cast of birds and drummers.
- Or skip the arguing and put everyone in harness: the Family Reindeer is on our page of funny Christmas cards, next to the sled with no brakes.
How it works
- Pick a cardPilots, mermaids, rock stars, one very surprised cake. Every one shows a real example first.
- Add their photosOne clear face each, up to 5 people. A selfie is fine. No sign-up.
- Preview it, then payOne picture of them in the card in about 10 seconds. Like it? Apple Pay or Google Pay, and four pictures arrive about 20 seconds later, the video in about 90.
What is a female reindeer called?
A cow. Males are bulls and babies are calves, the same words used for caribou, which are the same species.
Where do reindeer live in the wild?
Across the Arctic and sub-Arctic: Scandinavia, Russia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada. In North America the wild ones are called caribou, and "reindeer" usually means the herded kind.
What is Santa's wife called?
Mrs. Claus. She isn't in the 1823 poem; she turns up in American stories and poems later in the 1800s, usually without a first name. We gave her a glamorous card of her own.
Are Donner and Blitzen married?
Not in any source. They share a line in the poem and, as thunder and lightning, a weather system. That's the whole relationship.
What is Dasher's personality like?
The poem doesn't say. The name only tells you Dasher is fast. Every reindeer personality you've seen, including ours in the table above, was made up later.
By HiWith (Winding AI, Inc.) · support@winding.ai · Updated