From Germanic Reginhard meaning 'brave counsel'; became the French word for 'fox' via medieval fable.
Renard is a name inseparable from one of the great rogue figures of Western literature. The word itself comes from the Old High German Reginhard — regin meaning counsel or power and hard meaning brave or strong — but its meaning was effectively hijacked by the medieval French beast epic the Roman de Renart, a sprawling cycle of satirical tales composed between roughly 1170 and 1250. In those stories, Renart the fox is a cunning, amoral trickster who outwits wolves, bears, lions, and priests alike, lampooning feudal and ecclesiastical society with gleeful irreverence.
So beloved was this fictional fox that in French the common noun for fox shifted permanently from goupil to renard — a rare case of a character name replacing the established word for an entire species. Beyond France, the trickster fox archetype spread through Dutch, German, and Flemish literature, giving the world Reynard the Fox, and later inspiring Goethe's epic poem Reineke Fuchs (1794) and composer Paul Dessau's operatic adaptation. The name thus carries a double resonance: the Germanic virtues of its etymology and the quicksilver wit of its literary legacy.
Notable historical bearers include several Flemish nobles and at least one medieval abbot, though the name was far more famous on the page than in the baptismal register. In modern usage Renard is rare in English-speaking countries, which gives it an air of continental sophistication. French speakers still encounter it as a surname more often than a given name, but as English parents increasingly mine French and Germanic roots for distinctive choices, Renard offers something genuinely uncommon — a name that is both deeply historical and instantly associated with intelligence, adaptability, and a certain playful defiance of convention.