Okay, everyone pretty much agrees there’s Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, and Blitzen. Sometimes Rudolph, too.
But is it Donner or Donder?
Don’t forget Olive.
Google hits for “Donner and Blitzen” = 62,300
Google hits for “Donder and Blitzen” = 13,900
The Dutch “Donder and Bliksem” are probably closer to the cultural tradition that Moore, a New Yorker, was drawing from. Why Moore would have changed the latter to the German “Blitzen” isn’t clear to me, unless that was a peculiarity of the New York Dutch dialect of the time. Montgomery Ward ad man Robert May was probably of German ancestry, which might explain his “correction” of the pair to German consistency.
Ah yes…the other reindeer.
And Carol, the Ancient Yuletide Troll.
And John Virgin, as in “Round John Virgin, mother and child…”
And Harold the Angel, as in “Hark, Harold Angel sings…”
No, no, no the angel’s name was Hark.
There’s also a whole nother set of eight used as a backup. Steven, Fluffy, Horace, Chantel, Skippy, Rainbow, Patches and Montel.
Was Donder, but got adapted to more modern version as Donner.
In An American Anthology, 1787–1900, Edmund Clarence Stedman reprints the 1844 Clement Clarke Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of “Donder and Blitzen,” rather than the original 1823 version using the Dutch spelling, “Dunder and Blixem.” [3] Both phrases translate as “Thunder and Lightning” in English, though German for thunder is now spelled Donner, and the Dutch words would nowadays be spelled Donder and Bliksem.
In our creche, the Angel is named Gloria. We know this because she is wearing a name-tag sash, as well as being in the Highest.
Don’t forget…
'Gladly", the cross-eyed bear.
(Say it out loud)
Not to distract from the puns, but back when I was a wee elf, I learned the name as “Donder.” I blame the renewed awareness of the Donner Party for the later confusion over the name.
I. . . don’t get it.
i bought some kate spade dishes because they were called donner road. for some reason i found the name of the plates combined with knowledge of the famed donner party tickling my funny bone.
of all the reindeer… she picks donner. vixen road would have been cute, or comet avenue…
as far as the names go, i always thought it was dunder and blitzen.
Neither, of the above, it’s Dunder. And It’s not Blitzen, it’s Blixem
Full story at Snopes.
It’s a non-Christmas, church hymn title pun: “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear.”
See the hymn “Keep thou my way” verse three.