Santa Claus is a man, right? In this case, he may not be fine with the fact that people call him Santa, which is the Spanish and Portuguese word for female saint names. For example, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica (Barbara and Monica are both female names). Saint Nicholas is by the way translated as San Nicolas and São Nicolas, respectively, in these languages, as San and São are the words for male saint names.
Where does Santa in Santa Claus come from?
The name "Santa Claus" comes from a dialect of Dutch, where the word was "Sante Klaas".
In this case, it was not a feminine suffix; the word evolved into Santa, which only coincidentally looks like the feminine form of saint in some languages.
(The Dutch word does come from the same origins as the Spanish and Portuguese, incidentally; most Germanic languages borrowed this Romance word and made it their own.)
Sanctus Nicolaus:
The modern figure of Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas, whose name is a dialectal pronunciation of Saint Nicholas, the historical Greek bishop.
Thank you for your interest in this question.
Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).
Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?
