The name Reinhard

Oh, the internet is AMAZING when you want to know about something.....

Tonight, I came across a reference to Reineke Fuchs,  (Reynard the Fox), described on Wikipedia as an "old allegorical French, Dutch, English and German fable largely concerned with Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster figure".     My antenna twitched cuz mom's gramma was Franziska FUCHS, and mom's brother was REINHARD...hmm, there might have been some sort of influence there, however subtle.  The Reineke Fuchs stories were popular for centuries in Germany.

Google books version HERE (1832) and the illustrated version from Internet Archives HERE (1857).

So.  Reineke Fuchs "became throughout the 16th century within the German-speaking countries a bestseller.  It is the story of the mean, smart fox who always succeeds with his lies and triumphs in the end over his opponents".  Our parents didn't encourage "meanness"  or lying, but cleverness thru a bit of deceit was definitely admired.  And, no, they never read these stories to us ☺

Oh, and Wikipedia talks about the origins of REINHARD thusly:

  Theories about the origin of the name Reynard are:

• From the Germanic man's name Reginhard, which came from 'regin' = "the divine powers of the old Germanic religion" and "hard": "made hard by the gods", but with the disuse of the old Germanic religion was later likely interpreted as "rain-hard" meaning "staying steady under a rain of blows from weapons in battle" or similar.
• From the Germanic man's name Reginhard (later condensed to Reinhard), which comes from 'regin' = "counsel" and 'harti' = "strong", denoting someone who is wise, clever, or resourceful".

You're welcome!