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Why is Santa called Saint Nick? Greetings from Santa's Friend! The other day I asked Santa why he is often called Saint Nick. This was his response. ---------0--------------- North Americans often wonder why I am sometimes called Santa Claus and at other times Saint Nicholas. It’s an interesting story. By an accident of natal birth I was a Christian and in those days if you were a Christian you were a Catholic. The Church was simple and basic then. As time went on it became more complex. People tried to define the indefinable. This led to disagreement and eventually a splintering into factions. Each group was convinced it was right and tried to force its views on everyone else. As a result religious freedom became most important and a major factor in exploration and colonization. The Dutch, who founded New Amsterdam, now known as New York, were members of a potent protestant splinter group called the Dutch Reform. My relationship with these New World Dutch Protestants was shaky. For years, back in Holland, I had been closely associated with the Catholic Church. My actions and the thoughts behind those actions were in line with those of the Protestants but my name and all my trappings were clearly Catholic. By the same token many of the activities associated with me, gift giving for example, were carried out around December 6th, the anniversary of my birth into sainthood which the Catholic Church observed as a Feast Day. From the Dutch Reform point of view this was a serious problem. The Dutch have always liked me. Their Country was tiny and surrounded by powerful neighbors. It was over populated and short of land. As a result discipline in the family and in the Country was crucially important. Without it they might not have survived. Thus, they were grateful to me for helping them raise their little ones. Over the years I had functioned as a reward giver for children who were well behaved. My sidekick, Schwartz Pete or Black Pete, worked the other side of the street. He delivered switches to those whose behavior left something to be desired. The New World Dutch faced a dilemma. They didn’t want to give me up but at the same time they did not want to revere a Catholic Saint nor did they want to celebrate a Catholic Feast Day. To their way of thinking, change was mandatory. First they targeted my name. I had been christened Nicholas. Over the years it had been spelled many different ways. For ages there had been no really right or wrong way to spell anything. If what you wrote could be read and understood, it was spelled well enough. I happened to favor Nicklaus, but it could also be spelled Nicholas and the Dutch sometimes spelled it Nicklaas. According to custom in the Western World the nickname for Nicklaas was Nick, and I was familiarly known as Saint Nick. Not so in the Far East. Many Eastern languages are written from right to left rather than left to right as in the western world. Likewise when an Asian makes a diminutive or nickname they often start from what the western world would consider the wrong end of the word. Thus one Asian nickname for "Nicklaas" is "Klaas." The Dutch, as a result of their exploration and colonization of the East Indies were well aware of this. They also knew that Latin was the international language of Christianity and that the Latin word used in the Far East for the Christian concept of Saint was "Santa." This made the use of the Latin word Santa acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants alike. Therein lay the solution to the name problem. They simply coined a New Nickname for me. They combined the two words "Santa" and "Klaas" into "Santa Klaas" which in no time at all it was Americanized into "Santa Claus." This new name was acceptable to all. It was not Catholic, which pleased the Protestants but Catholics didn’t complain because I hadn’t actually been renamed. The reformers had simply used a remote but legitimate nickname and stated my title in a different language This solution worked for me. Elsewhere in the world I was being called by a number of different names anyway. Depending upon where I was I might answer to Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Pelz Noel, Jul-Nissen, Pere Noel, Kris Kringle, or Svaty Miklaus to mention but a very few. As a matter of fact on one occasion I was even called by two names at the same time. Really! A popular poem written around 1900, which has been set to music, is entitled "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas." It opens with "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" but then in the closing couplet calls me "Santa Claus." ------------------0--------------------- At this point Santa said he had to run. And I do too. I’ll be in touch next month. Santa’s Friend Glenn
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