According to the 1997 Tapir Action Plan of the IUCN (surely required reading in any household):
Early accounts of tapirs by explorers were doubted until one was captured alive in Sumatra (Van Gelder 1972). The species was described by Desmarest in 1819. In Malaysia tapirs are known by their nama daerah or local names, which include badak tampong, machan, cipan, tenuk, badak murai, and teronok. In Indonesia tapirs and rhinos are both referred to as badak (Ramsay in litt.)
In Sumatra, tapirs are commonly referred to as tenuk or seladang , gindol, babi alu, kuda ayer, kuda rimbu, kuda arau, marba, cipan, and sipan (Van der Zon 1976, 1979). In Thailand, they are commonly known as P'somm-sett which means a mixture; folklore says that the creator of species made tapirs with all of the leftover animal parts (Sanborn and Watkins 1950).