Rudolph is Santa Claus’s traditional reindeer with a glowing red nose.
Rudolph was created in 1939 by Robert L. May for a Christmas promotional booklet produced for Montgomery Ward, an American department-store chain. The character began as a story about a reindeer whose unusual nose becomes valuable when fog threatens to obscure Santa’s route.
The character became widely known through songs, recordings, books, and screen adaptations. The 1949 song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” written by Johnny Marks, was especially influential. A famous stop-motion television special followed in 1964.
Rudolph is not one of the eight reindeer named in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” That distinction causes a common mix-up: Rudolph belongs to the later popular tradition, while Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen come from the earlier poem.