The Dutch name “Bruinius” (pronounced BROO-nee-uhs), with its Latin genitive suffix, means “of the browns,” or “of the brown bear.”
It is probably derived from “Bruin the Bear,” a character in the medieval epic fable, History of Reynard the Fox, translated from the Middle Dutch by William Caxton in 1481.
In Dutch, the word “bruin” is pronounced “brown,” and it means the color brown.
Since the translation of Reynard the Fox in the 15th century, the word “bruin” has meant “bear” in English. It is usually the name for the ursus arctos, the ferocious brown bear found in parts of northern Europe and Asia.
