PLOTCASTER Photo to line art
Christmas and winter

Free reindeer names SVG files

Free reindeer names SVG files: the eight names from the poem, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, as stacked lettering, a sign with antlers, a tree of names, stable name plates, a stencil and the call itself. Every name is spelt and ordered from one list.

12 designs. Free for personal and commercial use, no sign-up. What you can do with them.

Or choose one below for its PNG, DXF and cutting sizes.

Eight names, and where they come from

The names come from “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, the poem that begins “’Twas the night before Christmas”, first printed in a New York newspaper in 1823 and long in the public domain. It names eight reindeer, in this order: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, and two more that the first printing spelt Dunder and Blixem, from the Dutch for thunder and lightning. Later editions changed them, and Donner and Blitzen are the spellings used today, so those are the ones cut here.

A ninth reindeer joined the team more than a century later, in a story and then a song. That name is not in the poem and is still protected, so these files stop at eight. If you want a blank ninth line, the single-column and two-column designs leave room to add one in your own lettering.

Sizes for signs and how the letters cut

A reindeer names sign is usually tall and narrow, to lean by a door or hang by a fireplace: 300 to 400 mm tall for a mantel, 900 mm or more for a porch board. The files are 100 mm on their longer side, so at 300 mm everything is three times the size given on a design’s page. Eight names is about fifty letters, and in vinyl each is a separate piece: weed slowly and lift them all at once with transfer tape so the spacing holds.

The plaque, the stencil and the name plates are single pieces with the letters cut through. Their closed letters, the D, A, R, P, O and B, are bridged, so the middles stay in when the plate is cut from wood or acrylic.

How to open the files

  • Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
  • Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
  • LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
  • Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
  • Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions

What order do the reindeer names go in?

The order of the poem: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, then Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Every design here keeps that order except the tree, which puts the shortest names at the top to make its shape.

Is it Donner or Donder?

Both have been printed. The 1823 newspaper had Dunder and Blixem; an 1844 edition by Clement Clarke Moore had Donder and Blitzen; and Donner, the German word for thunder, took over during the twentieth century. Donner is what most people expect to read now.

How do I keep fifty loose letters straight on a board?

Cut the whole design from one piece of vinyl and do not separate the names. Weed it, cover it with one sheet of transfer tape, and mark the centre line of the board and of the tape. Hinge the tape along the top with masking tape, peel the backing and smooth it down from the middle outwards.

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