Why do American kids call Santa Claus "Santa" instead of "Claus" ?

I am comforted by Maciamo's hair-splitting on this issue, as I do this myself quite a great deal. But I think also that Franco has a good point in his post on the topic.
 
I think people are just lazy to say the whole name. We tend to shorten many of the words out there when we are talking casually, like veges instead of vegetables, bye instead of Good Bye, mum instead of mother and the list goes on...
 
Maciamo said:
I assumed that British (and Australian) people of Anglican or Catholic background would know about St Nicholas since Anglicans also have (basically the same) saints as Catholics.

About half the Australians have at least partial Irish ancestry, but the Irish seem to be the only European Catholics that don't celebrate St Nicholas' Day. Even Orthodox in the Balkans celebrate it. Australia also has plenty of Southwest German (the wine makers), Italian and Greek immigrants who all should know about St Nicholas.

One may not believe in saints or all that Xmas crap, but contrarily to most Christian dogma/fairy tales, saints were real, living people who were beatificated by a pope. So St Nicholas/Saint Nicolas/San Nicola/Sankt Nikolaus/Santa Claus or whatever his name was a historical person, a citizen of the Roman Empire.
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Well I had a funny experience last year for Xmas, I said Santa Claus to a little girl, she didn't understand me looked at me all funny, until her granddad said Pere Noel, then it reminded me that was why she didn't understand!!!
 
Minty said:
Well I had a funny experience last year for Xmas, I said Santa Claus to a little girl, she didn't understand me looked at me all funny, until her granddad said Pere Noel, then it reminded me that was why she didn't understand!!!
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I confirm that French-speaking children have no idea who or what Santa Claus is (unless they are clever enough to guess a linguistic connection with Saint Nicolas, but it's unlikely unless they are from Alsace and speak German too).
 
In spain we call him "Papá Noel". But i know the santa thing too, probably because we usually watch a lot of american films about christmas. lol
 
Perséfone said:
In spain we call him "Papá Noel". But i know the santa thing too, probably because we usually watch a lot of american films about christmas. lol
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Are those films in English. In France and Belgium everything in dubbed in French, so there is no exposure to English at all for children.
 
Expediency, ignorance, habit, Anglo Saxon tradition, laziness, or some other reason...a couple thoughts:

First, many American evangelicals seem to be distancing themselves from the whole Christmas/Santa thing either because they see it as a bastardization of a Christian holiday or because of the holiday's association with pre-Christian European "heathen" religions. Full disclosure, before I get crucified (no pun intended) I'm a secular agnostic at best, or possibly a heathen-curious atheist.

The second thought I had is that it may be due to "Claus" sounding a bit too Germanic. Remember, the Germans were the bad guys in the last 2 big wars (for Americans), and who knows? Americans can be pretty silly about such things...remember "freedom fries?" I know my great-grandmother always called herself Pennsylvania Dutch, which I assumed meant she was from Holland. Getting into genetic geneology, I discovered she was actually a first generation American, her parents born in Frankfurt. I think during the first and second world wars, many German American's distanced themselves out of necessity, and who knows, "Claus" may have been sacrificed for the same reason?

Just a couple thoughts...
 
As far as Halloween, the "holiday" has become totally secularized and it's meaning entirely forgotten in the US. At least amongst those who haven't been to Mexico for Dia de los Muertos. Once you've experienced that, the silly corruption of the holiday (which of course is just a contraction of "holy day") becomes clear. By the way, why do you Europeans (British at least)refer to "bank holidays?" Worship of money perhaps? (joke! ;))
 
You could be right on about anything having a German flavor. The US underwent a profound "de-germanification" between 1915 and 1918, and folks in your home state of Wisconsin were affected as much as anyplace in the US. Germans made up the largest of all immigrant groups to the US from 1800--1900, and there were MANY places in the US where German was the everyday language of thousands....Milwaukie, Wisconsin being one of the foremost. Franciscan Friar Solanus Casey, a possible candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church, grew up in an Irish family on the Wisconsin frontier of his day. When he failed German in the Benedictine Seminary in Milwaukie, he was ejected with the comment that "no one who couldn't speak fluent German should be a priest in Wisconsin." Fortunately for him, and for the Church, the Franciscans in Chicago took him in!

Once Germany went to war with Britain, even before the "Zimmerman Telegram" affair, it became VERY unfashionable to sound, act or be "German" in this country full of German immigrants and their descendants. It was a profound and rapid cultural shift. But the German-Americans did it very smoothly and they became the least "ethnic" sub-group (after the English, of course) in the Nation. Even to this day, people of German ancestry are probably the least likely to be aware of their national heritage!
 
The most obvious reason, even if this is a fairly old thread and so perhaps kind of useless, is the name "Santa Claus" seems to be composed of a first (Santa) and last (Claus) name. This is why Santa Claus' wife is called "Mrs. Claus".

It's sort of like Jesus Christ. Most people probably think that Christ is his last name, as "the" is rarely used in English for Jesus the Christ.
 
I pretty much agree with Mzungu mchagga-Americans have so bastardised the English language, and corrupted history in movies and television programs that I guess many of them simply don't know what they're talking about. Unfortunately, via the same two media, their culture is spreading throughout the western world.
 
@Maciamo:In Australia there is a pretty even split between people who use Santa Clause and Father Christmas. The former has only become popular over the past fifty years, due, I think, to the migrant influence and the influence of American TV programs.
 
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JFWR said:
The most obvious reason, even if this is a fairly old thread and so perhaps kind of useless, is the name "Santa Claus" seems to be composed of a first (Santa) and last (Claus) name. This is why Santa Claus' wife is called "Mrs. Claus".

It's sort of like Jesus Christ. Most people probably think that Christ is his last name, as "the" is rarely used in English for Jesus the Christ.
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Actually, the word "santa" seems to be Spanish for "saint", as in Saint Claus (short for Nicolas). Wikipedia says:

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle and simply "Santa", is a figure with legendary, mythical, historical and folkloric origins who, in many western cultures, is said to bring gifts to the homes of the good children on the night before Christmas, December 24. However in some European countries children receive their presents on St. Nicholas' Day, December 6.[1] The modern figure of Santa Claus was derived from the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas, which, in turn, was part of its basis in hagiographical tales concerning the historical figure of Christian bishop and gift giver Saint Nicholas. During the Christianization of Germanic Europe, this figure may have absorbed elements of the god Odin, who was associated with the Germanic pagan midwinter event of Yuleand led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky.

As for the Jesus example, when I was young, I thought that if Jesus was a real person, he must actually have been Hispanic. Later I found out that there were historic reasons why the Spanish version of "Joshua" came to be used all over Europe.
 
I think American kids call him Santa just for fun, without thinking over the meaning of that. I also grew up calling him Santa.
 
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