Here are all the different names for Father Christmas across Europe, in one handy map

This year, will you be visited by Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Grandfather Frost, John Chimney or Christmas Gnome?

An infographic made by 26-year-old Czech linguist, mathematician, and artist Jakub Marian shows the names of gift-bringers at Christmas around Europe in one handy map.

As Marian elaborates on his website:

Each country (or region) has its own traditional Christmas gift-bringer. Some of them are quite nice, such as the British Father Christmas, others are outright weird, such as the Catalan “defecating log”, but all of them are equally interesting.

The map is coloured by the concept of the present bringers, not by the etymological similarity of their names.

For instance, we'd never heard of the Welsh veriosn, Siôn Corn (or John Chimney), who apparently lives in a Scandinavian country, not the North Pole, if Wikipedia is to be believed.

The map has certainly gained a positive reception from Independent staff on Twitter:

What a Christmas to be alive.

HT Telegraph

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