The name Renard Roux (French for ‘red fox’) stems from fond childhood memories of bedtime readings of a Danish collection of fables about Reynard the Fox.

The stories about Reynard, some of which date back as far as the 12th century, were so popular through the centuries that the French word for fox became 'renard', instead of the original 'goupil'. The wily fox would often sneakily outsmart the other animals, and his cunning and mischief made quite the impression, resulting in a lifelong love of foxes.

As the Danish spelling of ‘red fox’ (rød ræv) contains letters not known to most countries, other languages were foraged for a name for this project.

The German spelling, Rotfuchs, has a rather unfortunate series of connotations in the English language, and was quickly rejected.

The Japanese spelling ‘akagitsune’ 【赤狐 / アカギツネ】 is very pleasing linguistically, but was discarded for being a bit of a tongue-twister. Similarly, the Japanese word for ‘fox’ (in mythology) ‘kitsune’【狐 / きつね】 is quite beautiful, but is already used by French/British music label and fashion brand Kitsuné.

Many other candidates were examined, but in the end the French spelling won out due to its alliteration, and for having an X in it, which is pretty cool as far as words go (depending on where you're from, probably).

While the brand name could have been eponymous, it ended up being much more fun coming up with something else. A bit like getting to name a band, or a ship. For some reason, Jonas forgot to consider that Renard Roux might be hard to spell, remember, or pronounce for non-native French speakers, but it's a bit too late to worry about that now.

Hear the correct French pronounciation >>