> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
I present to you "Svalka" wine glasses. Dump", rubbish heap", or easy, promiscuous woman of ill repute in informal Baltic (and Slavic?) slang.
I have a "Särna" chair. "Sarna" in Spanish is "Scabies".
Fun fact: Although "Sarna" comes from Latin, seems like it's only used in Romance languages present in the Iberian Peninsula (Galician, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish...) and not for example in Italian, Romanian or French, as it's an Iberian loan word. Most other languages derive from another different Latin word, "scabiēs".
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?
I find this surprisingly high; I guess it’s _products_ and not _names_, meaning that five colors of the same product count as five new products but only one name.
They don't just sell furnitures, there is all the small accessories like cutting boards, plates, bowls, towels, cushions... Everything they're selling at their lowest floor before you reach the self-serve warehouse.
Fun Dutch observation:
IKEA’s ANTILOP high chair sounds like “anti lopen” in Dutch.
“lopen” = “to walk”
So the name can be interpreted as “anti walking” or “prevents your baby from walking away.”
I know it’s actually named after the animal (antelope), but the accidental Dutch wordplay is perfect for a baby chair.
Is also a Swedish word, though slang, the imperative form of paxa which basically means the same as "dibs!" If I know my english colloquialisms correctly.
For a Swede it must seem kind of strange to understand the product names. You see an ACORN toy, a NIGEL bookshelf, and the CROYDON sofa... which sounds like it belongs in a council estate flat.
Definately more fun would be the Polish version. How many people can pronounce the BYDGOSZCZ sofa, the PRZEMYSŁAW bookcase and the PSZCZOŁA soft toy?
As a Swede, I always enjoy Ikea product names. Many of them are based on their actual function or category. Some are wordplay related to this. For example:
Rinnig - a kitchen towel called "runny"
Skaftet - a series of standing lamps and lamp stands called "the shaft"
Fejka - plastic plants literally called "to fake"
Knöckla - A garbage bin called "crumple up"
Some I don't get but are still funny
Ostbit - wooden serving tongs called "piece of cheese"?
The fact that Sz in Hungarian reads as s and other way around, S becomes sh - is mind-boggling especially for Poles, where Sz is pronounced as sh. and S remains s.
Funnily enough, there are quite a few IKEA products with Finnish names. (Most are place names from northern Sweden, where there's a significant Finnish minority.)
The Tornedalen people are kinda their own group with their own language (Meänkieli). To an outsider it might sound like Finnish, but it's not much closer to Finnish than Yiddish is to German.
Meänkieli split from what became the Torne Valley dialects of Finnish in 1809, when an international border suddenly appeared in the middle of the region. To a Finnish speaker it sounds like a bit old-fashioned dialect, but it's mostly intelligible. It's definitely closer to standard Finnish than Karelian, which takes a lot of effort to understand.
Not so sure. As a native Finnish speaker, I'd say most of us would understand Meänkieli just fine, especially anyone raised on the coastal areas where colloquial Swedish loans are more common in general.
You really wanna get weird, there's those continents of Asia, Africa, and South America, full of different sounds to use for names. Ikea is Swedish, so they get to propagate Swedish culture to the rest of the world.
I can just imagine Chinese IKEA, their entire product list would be Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī Shì shì shì shì.
I'd love seeing some Polish names in products and learning their pronounciation: but as a fellow Slavic language speaker (which there are hundreds of millions of, compared to 10 or 20 million Swedish speakers), I imagine I can do a pretty good job. So I think Swedish is still globally more playful.
(I'd read it as БИЂОШЧ/БИДГОШЧ, ПРЗЕМИСЛАВ and ПШЧОЛА/ПШЧОЉА — you can check on Google Translate if I am close :))
its not all that strange tbh - im learning danish which is adjacent enough to swedish that I can understand most of the names - sometimes they aren't relevant to the product function, sometimes they are, but they're just names. Is it strange to you that the word "photoshop" uses english language? what about a Hamburger being named after a place?
Nitpicking but your examples all have a clear etymology that may even help you deduce the purpose of a thing.
Hamburger means 'from Hamburg' and can be short for 'in the style of Hamburg', which sounds perfectly normal to a native. This is, would I say, less strange than if it was named 'Hamburg', which seems to be the case of IKEA furniture.
Photoshop, in the same way, seems to refer to a photo workshop, which once again has an etymology, as it refers to the initial purpose of that program, reworking pictures.
On the opposite, if things are just named 'for the lulz', and my desk is called Boston, my text editor 'golden retriever' and my lamp acorn, confusion may at some point arise.
GNOME used to give software applications names of common nouns that were usually not strongly related to their function: Nautilus, Palimpsest, Totem, Tomboy, Seahorse. At some point I think they decided to move away from this because they found many users had a hard time remembering the names.
The way I remember it, GNOME moved away from funny release codenames all the way back around 2004 or 2005, and then gradually moved to application names reflecting their generic function (eg. gedit was for a long time called "Gnome Text Editor" in the .desktop file, basically hiding the component name in an about dialog, before another "gnome text editor" was introduced to replace it, but I haven't tracked this and maybe it's just a project rename too).
I do believe it is acceptable for software to have playful names. After all, that's how "googling", "tweeting" have entered the vocabulary (and no, nobody is "facebooking"). I am pretty sure global human population is not so dumb to not be able to learn to associate a non-function-reflecting name to its purpose. If anything, it's a marketing thing.
Every furniture chain I’ve been in contact with have had furniture names like “Boston” and “acorn” and is “golden retriever” really that far off from Apple old OS naming scheme with snow leopards, lions and cougars?
I have always thought this about western media. For all of us in non-us countries, the locations, roads and objects are all slightly foreign to us, giving it that other-world feel movies have.
But for those in the US, wouldn't it all be a bit familiar? Whenever I watch a movie set in my home country with home accents and locations, it always feels a bit too familiar and it can cheapen the feel a bit.
Well, I'm an American, but US media is disproportionately set in Los Angeles or NYC, and I haven't been to either of those places.
I was watching Monk recently, and it feels kinda neat seeing a show shot in San Francisco because I used to live there. I wouldn't say it feels "cheap" though.
Ikea mobile application has little speaker near the product name that invokes pronunciation - sadly, that's not available on desktop site. I still tend to read Swedish accented letters in these names as German umlauts.
So that wouldn't be a problem if Polish names would be provided with audio examples.
By the way, the communistic period here was full of products using regular words, name of places or people’s names. We had Wisła, Bieszczady wall units. First Polish color TV was Jowisz (Jupiter); first TV ever my mother had was called Szafir (Saphire). Then Szarotka (elderweis) or Sylwia radios from 50s and 60s respectively. A clone of IBM PC with Intel 8086 (or with Russian clone) from 1986 was called Mazovia - Mazowsze which is a historical region of Poland, same name was also used for DOS encoding for that machine.
You have a point but in Branding, it is accepted that bold (noisy) and distinctive (rather than only descriptive) names are an advantage: Creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adyIaTopO6g&t=610 (Jun 2025).
> In other parts of the world, they are basically incomprehensible, but fun!
For some reason unknown to either of us it really pisses off my wife when I refer to our IKEA furniture by the Swedish names. I think it stems from a deep seated disdain she has for flat pack furniture.
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
I love the JERKER desk that I bought 26 years ago, so I assume this rule must be younger than that.
Pax is another one that violates the rule that someone pointed out lower. Also Malm is a surname which is another violation of the rule (one of the characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was named, if I recall correctly, Stefan Malm). I remember reading the books with my then-wife and she said it was like reading an IKEA catalog. I thought she was referring to the character/place names, but it turned out that the second book had a long section where the titular girl furnishes an apartment from IKEA and—that chapter was exactly like reading an IKEA catalog.
When it comes to names like "MALM", it's likely incidental.
"Malm" is a a noun with several meanings, most notably "metal ore", but also some (more archaic) meanings like "area with sandy soil" or "city outskirts".
The fact that "Malm" also happens to be a surname is secondary; Swedish has a lot of surnames that are simply ordinary nouns or adjectives. A completely literal "No surnames, ever" rule would probably be quite a bit too restrictive. I suspect that the actual internal rule is "No names that are primarily (or solely) surnames", or something to that effect.
Currently 6833 people in Sweden have the last name "Malm", and some large fraction of them were born before 2005 (could not be bothered to check how many, sorry!).
Similar trivia with a Swedish connection: the original name of the Honda Fit/Jazz was Honda Fitta, but then they found out it's the Swedish word for "cunt" so that was a no-go.
Yes, they also sold a toilet brush named "VIREN". In Germany this is the plural of virus.
And some year ago Danes complained IKEA named carpets and runner after danish towns but never something "better".
I didn’t even know the name for the longest time. It’s only when I wanted to buy some extensions that I realized the cult status of that model, and that’s not (just) because of the name. It’s a truly great design and a shame that it was discontinued many years ago.
IKEA is the new "fast fashion", but for furniture.
You buy something one day, and it starts to deteriorate and become janky after a year, and you'll have a buy a new one. All products have gone through spreadsheet cost optimizations.
It wasn't always like that. If you're lucky to get your hands on an old IKEA bookshelf (Billy), it's sturdy and will last forever.
We’ve had IKEA furniture for over 15 years, sometimes storing it in the attic for a few years after disassembling it, then assembling it again. We’ve also kept the main bodies of our living room furniture while replacing the doors. We sold the old doors on eBay, and other people reused them.
I also inherited some “regular” living room furniture after my mom passed away. It cost about four times as much as IKEA’s higher-end lines. After moving it from my mom’s place to my office, I can already see it falling apart after just three years (total lifetime as my mom only had it for two). The quality is so shite that I honestly wish my mom had bought IKEA.
In the future, I’ll either buy custom pieces from a furniture maker or choose IKEA's higher end lines for longevity and reusability.
Even the stuff they've traditionally been good at?
Funny thing is, I haven't bought much furniture for ages since my old IKEA stuff has lasted for several decades and is still going strong. Their major kitchen appliances are crap, though.
> You buy something one day, and it starts to deteriorate and become janky after a year, and you'll have a buy a new one
I had a LACK table (9.99 euros at time of acquisition) last for 10 years before a move forced me to give it away. I also have a few random things from them (wooden cutting board, grater, I think a bookshelf) and everything is pretty OK, even the cheap stuff.
It is funny how those name often sound differently than intended in other languages while still remaining memetic. My best example is "Knorrig" as it sounds like a fun name for a pig since "knur" is a male ping in Polish.
Why should we treat a minor wiki page and some dude's personal site (who disagree with each other on totals) as authoritative proof Ikea is wrong about it's own catalog? Especially when it's not hard to find 1st/3rd party sources claiming an order of magnitude more products. Keep in mind, some things will also fall off the catalog over time.
I’m going to guess that a good chunk of products are named but never released. I’d love to know what products IKEA develops but decides to not release.
Chiming in for the Ikea fans - you should definitely listen to the Acquired episode about it! It was fantastic and covered this and other fun facts
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/ikea
A while ago I worked on a product which created a lot of media files for the user, and these files all needed to be named in a unique - yet human-pronouncable manner.
We considered using something like what3words[1], but then one bright dev came up with a way of constructing a filename using phonemes derived from the names of Austrian philosophers ..
This worked so well, for some reason - whether selection bias in the list created by the CEO for the purpose (putting that degree to good use, finally), or maybe just because Austrian philosophers all have great names for the purpose.
I confess that I do think about this a lot, as I am lost in the endless maze of Ikea stuff on my way for some meatballs.
Edit: I couldn't resist, it looks something like this:
-- Unique filename generator based on phonemes derived from the top 10
-- most well-known Austrian philosophers (per Pantheon HPI ranking):
-- 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein
-- 2. Karl Popper
-- 3. Martin Buber
-- 4. Paul Feyerabend
-- 5. Josef Breuer
-- 6. Ivan Illich
-- 7. Otto Weininger
-- 8. Alfred Schütz
-- 9. Otto Neurath
-- 10. Jean Améry
--
-- Phonemes / syllable units extracted from the names (approximating
-- German/English pronunciation for pronounceability):
local PHONEMES = {
-- Wittgenstein
"wit", "gen", "stein", "wig", "stein",
-- Popper
"pop", "per", "popr",
-- Buber
"bu", "ber", "bub",
-- Feyerabend
"fey", "er", "a", "bend", "abend",
-- Breuer
"breu", "er", "breuer",
-- Illich
"il", "lich", "ill", "ich",
-- Weininger
"wei", "nin", "ger", "wein",
-- Schütz (approximated without diacritics for filename safety)
"schu", "etz", "schutz", "shuets",
-- Neurath
"neu", "rath", "neur",
-- Améry
"a", "me", "ry", "amer", "ery"
}
--- Generates a unique, pronounceable filename.
-- The random selection of phonemes is seeded from the current timestamp.
-- @param extension (optional) file extension without the leading dot (default: "txt")
-- @param syllable_count (optional) number of phoneme units to combine (default: 3)
-- @return string A filename of the form: <phoneme-combo>.<ext>
function generate_austrian_philosopher_filename(extension, syllable_count)
extension = extension or "txt"
syllable_count = syllable_count or 3
-- Safety: ensure we have at least 2 syllables and a sensible upper bound
if syllable_count < 2 then syllable_count = 2 end
if syllable_count > 6 then syllable_count = 6 end
-- Seed the PRNG from the current timestamp for this generation
math.randomseed(os.time())
local parts = {}
for i = 1, syllable_count do
local idx = math.random(1, #PHONEMES)
parts[i] = PHONEMES[idx]
end
-- Combine into a readable base name (hyphenated for clarity)
local base = table.concat(parts, "-")
return string.format("%s.%s", base, extension)
end
-- Example usage:
-- print(generate_austrian_philosopher_filename())
-- → e.g. "stein-neu-ber.txt"
--
-- print(generate_austrian_philosopher_filename("log", 4))
-- → e.g. "fey-wit-pop-rath.log"
Looks like some of these place names have been overpowered in search results by their named-for sofa counterparts! When searching Finnala, Sweden, I essentially only get search results for the sofa, and even the Google AI overview, while admitting it's a locality in Sweden, shows me a picture of the sofa!
Amazing. A post asks a question in the title that I actually want answered, and then goes on to answer that question clearly and succinctly. Maybe the best corporate content I've seen this year.
But how can I find the answer to the question without reading punchy headers followed by paragraphs like
> How We Leverage Naming
> Our Naming Strategy, Explained
> Why Swedish Is Important
> The Bottom Line
And unforgettable aphorisms like
> It isn't just a name—it is the output of a scalable, globally coordinated, linguistically validated, Swedish-inspired naming framework designed to optimize brand consistency
to let me know? I'm completely lost on this page and can't find the answer without these.
I'd suggest you look at it as funny and not annoying: IKEA in London, being a very multicultural place, likely has many non-native English speakers as well!
When all else fails, you can always go back to the basic international language of gesturing, pointing and acting out the use of something to get to your point. (Or more boringly, point at the name on your phone)
You could also try adapting pronounciation to what they might expect first, and then if you establish a friendly conversation, offer the real Swedish pronounciation next.
It sounds like that would be very much what use of Swedish names in a global brand should invite, and not annoyance for Swedes :)
> you can always go back to the basic international language of gesturing,
Doesn't really work for the kind of products they sell. E.g. going to the spare parts place and asking for a replacement part for Mörbylånga or Nackanäs. And I don't know the international gesture for a table. Besides, they have many tables.
I don't think saying "Bläddra", and signing that you're flipping through a book, helps at all either.
> You could also try adapting pronounciation to what they might expect
Right. This is what one has to do. But it feels like if you were to go to Russia and slowly and loudly say "I-ski want-ski a-ski table-ski". Except, you know, not offensive because I have the objectively right way to say it and the staff doesn't.
I'm not saying it's hard to do, but since once you know a language you pretty much cannot go back to hearing and reading it as noise, I stand by that it's a bit annoying to need to simulate how someone else would mispronounce it.
And this is unlike someone experiencing their names constantly mispronounced, because the people who get it wrong literally work for IKEA.
For comparison, say there was an English store in Netherlands, and you would have to look at the spelling every time in order to "simulate" which "s" should become "sch" to make the staff understand you. Saying it the dutch way may, to you, become a tongue twister.
> It sounds like that would be very much what use of Swedish names in a global brand should invite, and not annoyance for Swedes :)
You'd think so, but while a great brand, it causes practical annoyances sometimes.
They have a great selection of products. You could say they have a smörgåsbord of products. Or as you'd have to say in English to be understood, a schmoargoesboard.
As a related anecdote, I found it surprising when I moved to Switzerland decades ago, that speaking high German wouldn't really work with foreign-looking shop assistants - they'd only speak and even understand Swiss German.
> When Mötley Crüe visited Germany, singer Vince Neil said the band could not figure out why "the crowds were chanting, 'Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!'"
But like those German speakers assumed German orthography, English speakers will assume English orthography when presented with Swedish words.
Only foreign words learned by sound have a chance of getting pronounced correctly, e.g. croissant or Djokovic... maybe even Smörgåsbord?
If there were a British furniture shop operating globally and using placenames for products, British people would have trouble asking the locals for HAWICK (hoik), LOUGHBOROUGH (luffburra), FROME (froom) or YNYSYBWL (anissabul)
They didn't assume German pronunciation without reason. The umlaut dots aren't for decoration in German and ä, ö, ü only sound one way - including in Swedish, which has ä and ö, too. There is no ü in Swedish maybe because the Swedish u sounds like the German ü already.
I was surprised at a Jysk in Spain where I used the dialect pronunciation of a Norwegian city (saying Læknes for Leknes) when buying chairs with that name, and the girl not only understood me but used close to the same pronunciation when asking someone to get them from storage
I remember that in Dutch product catalogs, IKEA often used the name Gammelgaard (referring to Niels Gammelgaard, a Danish product designer). In Dutch, "gammel" means "rickety. "
The product names have made me chuckle quite a few times in the past. Such an easy way to make your products more likeable.
Also, maybe semi-relevant: I made a small guessing game about the IKEA product catalogue in case someone wants to be lightly entertainment for two minutes [1].
This is so random. I had just pulled this exact page up this morning to settle a debate with coworkers over whether the product names were real Swedish words or not. I thought they were all made up!
Was very surprised to find things like “bookshelves are all men’s names”, “all names must have ä, å, or ö”, etc.
Complete coincidence that this is #2 today. Had to check that ’NaOH’ wasn’t one of my coworkers
Those are the letters we have that are distinct from English. Not exotic to us, but yeah, "weird letters" is probably considered part of the international brand now.
By the way, we consider them unique letters, not A and O with diacritics. The Swedish alphabet goes …XYZÅÄÖ.
Oh, and I just learned that we only officially added W in 2006. Before that, it was considered a variant of V. We still pronounce them the same, which is why many swedes will mix them up when speaking English. Mostly in the W->V direction, but I've heard the opposite happen too.
I lived in Sweden in the late nineties. The local phone book had my Dutch name sorted under the V & W section because it has the word 'van' (means of in English) in it. In the Netherlands my name would be in the G section (van Gurp) because otherwise most of the phone book would have to be sorted under the V, which would defeat the purpose of sorting.
Just to make things worse, the Scandinavian languages use different versions of what have historically been the same letters, and collate them differently. E.g. Norwegian has æ (Ä), ø (Ö), å, collated in that order. Technically the Swedish variants are not part of the Norwegian alphabet, but they're typically collated with their modern Norwegian equivalents.
At least in Norwegian, ae, oe, and aa is also traditionally collated as if they were using these letters, so a word starting "aa" comes at the end of the alphabet, after z, oe and ae....
Not sure why, but when I see certain diacritics with latin alphabet, my brain tries to place the language somewhere in Europe. I don't know if I can call that an exotic feeling but it certainly feels foreign.
Scandinavia and the Nordics are quite fancy and refined for Americans. Lagom, hygge, fika, the minimalism, the enlightened equality and solidarity, good education, little crime, highest happiness ratings, even prisons are like hotels, etc makes it a kind of imagined lifestyle that's cozy and thoughtful and so on.
I guess it helps with emphasizing their Swedish identity, which is one of their goals with naming. Doesn't gel too well with "feels good to say" for a non-native speaker, but I see their point.
Yeah, given they sell to every continent, I find it utterly impossible they truly tested this with each of the dozens to hundreds of languages their customers speak.
Most likely. In the early 90s there was a knock-off of Ikea called Stør which used the ø for exoticism. I had assumed that it was a Danish company, but apparently, not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STØR (The store where I bought some of my first furniture from—off the 60 in City of Industry—was quite possibly the original location).
To reiterate on another comment that would make no sense to Swedish speakers. Å is a distinct letter, with a different and unique vowel sound. It is in no way "a slightly different kind of A".
Your suggestion sounds a bit like spelling Apple like AIILE and using the circles to form a cool infinity symbol. Or something.
I always assumed the names were mostly random Swedish words picked for the vibe. The fact that there's a taxonomy behind them makes it much funnier somehow
I'm firmly in camp dad joke, but since Ü is a German letter that is not part of the Swedish alphabet, may I suggest you learn how to say RÄKSMÖRGÅS and update the joke?
The patched version might even work on some Swedish-speakers if you nail the pronounciation! :)
Swedish does naturally use a lot of letters with umlauts (e.g. a common plural suffix -är), so a noun with a special letter is usually not hard to come by, and looks more Swedish (than, say, Dutch or English, which are sort of cousin languages).
My first memory of being angry with not knowing English was when we were trying to read the pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards and I clearly remember it being gibberish. Otherwise it's difficult to remember what it was like to not know a skill before you learned it, at least it is for me.
If you ever find yourself in southern Sweden (or Copenhagen and fancy a train ride across a cool bridge) the IKEA museum at Älmhult is well worth a visit: https://ikeamuseum.com/en/
I was there three days ago, can comfirm. And if you want to stay overnight, you _of course_ sleep in the neighbouring IKEA Hotel! And if you check-in to the hotel first, you‘ll get a voucher for free entrance to the museum. Did I mention that an absolutely excellent breakfast is included in the very reasonable room rate?
And in case you visit the museum in the near future, they currently have a special (temporary) exhibition about IKEA's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was a very creative but also exceptionally socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneur. Nice contrast to today's appalling tech billionaires.
I love how the chose Verde, which means value, for their long time retired kitchen furniture. They were so good that they still sell above their original retail prices now.
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
> Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, had a hard time remembering numbers and numbers
And also numbers I assume. Does it mean something like “endless stream of numbers”?
I’m very surprised that they have 2000-3000 new products every year. Checking every name against every language of countries they operate in to avoid “bad” names must be a pain.
The Swedish version of the page just says "siffror" (literally "digits", but colloquially "numbers") once.
I'm not aware of any relevant Swedish expression that would repeat the same word like that. Maybe something like "siffror och tal", where both words could be translated as "numbers" by someone not paying attention to the resulting sentence. :)
The thing is that recent products are crappy. I got so many decades old secondhand things. They looked like regular old furniture and it was fine. Then I continued buying same things, but new. While the old furniture didn’t change at all the new pieces became yellow/brown after couple tears. We don’t smoke!!! It was a nightmare and I don’t buy IKEA products anymore.
Sometimes it works and name are weird, nice and fun.
But sometimes, quite a lot, I think that it is counter productive because the name is hard to remember, spell or say if local language.
So in the end, hard to say to a seller or type on the part screen the name of what you want. Most of the time you will not be able to remember what was the name of the thing and have to look around and find by categories to find again what you are looking for. And forgot the name already 3 days after.
And actually i was multiple time annoyed by that.
For example, look at the baby changing table name: ÄLSKVÄRD.
Also, hard to remember/pronounce name make it that often you are lost and confused between multiple names that doesn't make any sense to you like HFEREZR versus HORCRUX.
One case that frustrated me a lot is: good luck finding which white cabinet door you need to buy between VEDDINGE and VALLSTENA that are 99,9% the same, and have the same description on ikea website and shops...
In the warehouse you are looking for it, you look for the thing starting with the V, like VA...VII... something, and you find VEDDINGE. Was it this one i needed to be or another name similar?
I think your actual issue is that spelling and pronunciation are too inconsistent in your native language. With a more consistent language, it's pretty easy to remember foreign words and names using the pronunciation in your native language, assuming that the letters are mostly the same. You don't need to understand the word or know the correct pronunciation (though both obviously help).
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile
If I remember correctly, they had a desk named "JERKER" in early 2000s.
I worked with a guy called Jerker at IBM in Greenock, who soon learned to give back as good as he got. Swedish people can be pretty sarcastic, so he was what you'd call a "good cultural fit".
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
I present to you "Svalka" wine glasses. Dump", rubbish heap", or easy, promiscuous woman of ill repute in informal Baltic (and Slavic?) slang.
Svalka has been around from at least year 2000. Might even be one of the reasons for the current practice.
I have a "Särna" chair. "Sarna" in Spanish is "Scabies".
Fun fact: Although "Sarna" comes from Latin, seems like it's only used in Romance languages present in the Iberian Peninsula (Galician, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish...) and not for example in Italian, Romanian or French, as it's an Iberian loan word. Most other languages derive from another different Latin word, "scabiēs".
The umlaut does mean that to a Swede it is not the same word sound at all. I can only guess that is why it was allowed?
The sound is still very close in this situation (ä before r) my guess is they didn't have the Spanish sarna on their radar
I swear this is untrue. Half the names of ikea products allude to funny words in German.
funny indeed!
but no trash talk, no swear words, nothing gross or offending.
Do IKEA have farthinders in their parking lots?
No, they are slut
My favorite Ikea product name.
I mean, if you were to use that name for an IKEA product, you can do worse than wine glasses :P
A bed would be a little too on the nose I think.
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages
This procedure does not always work: https://adland.tv/whats-name-case-2351-ikeas-gutvik-bunk-bed
My favorite is `fejka` for the artificial plant/flower.
I think "being as widely-understandable pun as possible" is definitely one of their naming priorities.
Want a nice wardrobe? Well vuk u, you get this one:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vuku-wardrobe-white-80331973/
Need an end table that is lacking?
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-white-30449908/
> Need an end table that is lacking?
End table? That’s a server rack: https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/List_of_IkeaRacks
I love Lack, really versatile piece of furniture/equipment! Not lacking at all :)
server lack
"Hey, Dana…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2oje4cYxw
Mine too. It was such a delight seeing it for the first time. Still brings a smile many years later.
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?
I find this surprisingly high; I guess it’s _products_ and not _names_, meaning that five colors of the same product count as five new products but only one name.
They don't just sell furnitures, there is all the small accessories like cutting boards, plates, bowls, towels, cushions... Everything they're selling at their lowest floor before you reach the self-serve warehouse.
The door mats are mostly named after places in Denmark, as they should be.
And one of them, "Trampa", means "trap" or "cheating" in Spanish
means "to step" or "step on" in Swedish, at least.
The toilet seat is named after the strait between Denmark and Sweden. https://youtu.be/ajBN0Xypi0I
The door mats should be named after doors, and the place mats named after places.
Maybe the door mats should be called Matthew, Matityahu, Matti, Mattes, Matthias.
The rubber ducky (yes, they sell one) could be called Bob.
Fun Dutch observation: IKEA’s ANTILOP high chair sounds like “anti lopen” in Dutch. “lopen” = “to walk” So the name can be interpreted as “anti walking” or “prevents your baby from walking away.” I know it’s actually named after the animal (antelope), but the accidental Dutch wordplay is perfect for a baby chair.
> contain between 4 and 12 letters
PAX
https://www.ikea.com/de/en/cat/pax-system-19086/
Is also a Swedish word, though slang, the imperative form of paxa which basically means the same as "dibs!" If I know my english colloquialisms correctly.
The exception that proves the rule :)
It reminds some system - they didn’t allow “other” category for sorting features, but someone came with “999” :)
Clue to their DB setup?
For a Swede it must seem kind of strange to understand the product names. You see an ACORN toy, a NIGEL bookshelf, and the CROYDON sofa... which sounds like it belongs in a council estate flat.
Definately more fun would be the Polish version. How many people can pronounce the BYDGOSZCZ sofa, the PRZEMYSŁAW bookcase and the PSZCZOŁA soft toy?
> BYDGOSZCZ sofa
This may not even be that far off from reality, looking at the sort of names rando brands on Amazon often have...
No joke, I came across a cosmetics brand recently called "Pooplunch"
Genius strategy for earning organic social media
At least BYDGOSZCZ is a real word in a real language
Note to self: Change WiFi password, some bastard has posted it to HN for everyone to see.
Place looks pretty nice, too.
As a Swede, I always enjoy Ikea product names. Many of them are based on their actual function or category. Some are wordplay related to this. For example:
Rinnig - a kitchen towel called "runny"
Skaftet - a series of standing lamps and lamp stands called "the shaft"
Fejka - plastic plants literally called "to fake"
Knöckla - A garbage bin called "crumple up"
Some I don't get but are still funny
Ostbit - wooden serving tongs called "piece of cheese"?
I guess you can use the tongs to serve pieces of cheese.
If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.
My missus is Hungarian, I'm sure it's a lovely language but it just sounds like Klingon to me.
Which makes it hilarious when she's annoyed at the boy.
The fact that Sz in Hungarian reads as s and other way around, S becomes sh - is mind-boggling especially for Poles, where Sz is pronounced as sh. and S remains s.
In Spanish "z" always sounds [s] (except in Spain where it sounds [θ]), but "s" can often sound [z].
Funnily enough, there are quite a few IKEA products with Finnish names. (Most are place names from northern Sweden, where there's a significant Finnish minority.)
The Tornedalen people are kinda their own group with their own language (Meänkieli). To an outsider it might sound like Finnish, but it's not much closer to Finnish than Yiddish is to German.
Meänkieli split from what became the Torne Valley dialects of Finnish in 1809, when an international border suddenly appeared in the middle of the region. To a Finnish speaker it sounds like a bit old-fashioned dialect, but it's mostly intelligible. It's definitely closer to standard Finnish than Karelian, which takes a lot of effort to understand.
Not so sure. As a native Finnish speaker, I'd say most of us would understand Meänkieli just fine, especially anyone raised on the coastal areas where colloquial Swedish loans are more common in general.
Now I want a HÉTFŐ desk, and a SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR... something.
Basque would be truly weird since it is one of a few known language isolates
Imagine an alternative reality where a KALLAX is a ԿԱԼԼԱՔՍ and the stores have pushy salesmen with impressive amounts of visible chest hair.
the joke is a bit too hairy to my taste, and yet I can't help but imagine how good would be the restaurant in that reality!
I heard the raktajino is really good! Qapla'!
Their ads could star the Kardashians.
You really wanna get weird, there's those continents of Asia, Africa, and South America, full of different sounds to use for names. Ikea is Swedish, so they get to propagate Swedish culture to the rest of the world.
I can just imagine Chinese IKEA, their entire product list would be Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī Shì shì shì shì.
With a side of tasty meatballs.
I've had tasty meatballs. It was the lingonberry sauce that I was introduced from Ikea.
I'd love seeing some Polish names in products and learning their pronounciation: but as a fellow Slavic language speaker (which there are hundreds of millions of, compared to 10 or 20 million Swedish speakers), I imagine I can do a pretty good job. So I think Swedish is still globally more playful.
(I'd read it as БИЂОШЧ/БИДГОШЧ, ПРЗЕМИСЛАВ and ПШЧОЛА/ПШЧОЉА — you can check on Google Translate if I am close :))
its not all that strange tbh - im learning danish which is adjacent enough to swedish that I can understand most of the names - sometimes they aren't relevant to the product function, sometimes they are, but they're just names. Is it strange to you that the word "photoshop" uses english language? what about a Hamburger being named after a place?
Nitpicking but your examples all have a clear etymology that may even help you deduce the purpose of a thing. Hamburger means 'from Hamburg' and can be short for 'in the style of Hamburg', which sounds perfectly normal to a native. This is, would I say, less strange than if it was named 'Hamburg', which seems to be the case of IKEA furniture. Photoshop, in the same way, seems to refer to a photo workshop, which once again has an etymology, as it refers to the initial purpose of that program, reworking pictures. On the opposite, if things are just named 'for the lulz', and my desk is called Boston, my text editor 'golden retriever' and my lamp acorn, confusion may at some point arise.
GNOME used to give software applications names of common nouns that were usually not strongly related to their function: Nautilus, Palimpsest, Totem, Tomboy, Seahorse. At some point I think they decided to move away from this because they found many users had a hard time remembering the names.
The way I remember it, GNOME moved away from funny release codenames all the way back around 2004 or 2005, and then gradually moved to application names reflecting their generic function (eg. gedit was for a long time called "Gnome Text Editor" in the .desktop file, basically hiding the component name in an about dialog, before another "gnome text editor" was introduced to replace it, but I haven't tracked this and maybe it's just a project rename too).
I do believe it is acceptable for software to have playful names. After all, that's how "googling", "tweeting" have entered the vocabulary (and no, nobody is "facebooking"). I am pretty sure global human population is not so dumb to not be able to learn to associate a non-function-reflecting name to its purpose. If anything, it's a marketing thing.
Is that rule number one or two in that naming things are hard?
How about eating a Sandwich with Turkey, Bologna and Cheddar, maybe with a Paris-Brest for dessert?
Every furniture chain I’ve been in contact with have had furniture names like “Boston” and “acorn” and is “golden retriever” really that far off from Apple old OS naming scheme with snow leopards, lions and cougars?
Just go to Polish IKEA and buy the Grzegorz table and Brzęczyszczykiewicz chairs …
> Brzęczyszczykiewicz
MAUL HALTEN!
For everybody who's as lost as I was, the above is a quote from a 1970 polish movie:
https://youtu.be/AfKZclMWS1U
It is kind of funny sometimes. Sometimes it’s related to what the thing is (like a pun) and sometimes just random
I have always thought this about western media. For all of us in non-us countries, the locations, roads and objects are all slightly foreign to us, giving it that other-world feel movies have.
But for those in the US, wouldn't it all be a bit familiar? Whenever I watch a movie set in my home country with home accents and locations, it always feels a bit too familiar and it can cheapen the feel a bit.
Well, I'm an American, but US media is disproportionately set in Los Angeles or NYC, and I haven't been to either of those places.
I was watching Monk recently, and it feels kinda neat seeing a show shot in San Francisco because I used to live there. I wouldn't say it feels "cheap" though.
It is fun to see the familiar Los Santos locations.
Would also be more fitting as most of it is made in Poland.
IKEA Poland missed an opportunity here
Tak
> CROYDON sofa
I mean.. we have the Windsor Chair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_chair) and the Welsh Dresser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_dresser) and those both slightly predate ikea so it's not a new thing.
Ok porridge drawer is definitely someone having a laff
Nope. Real Scots history. See also ‘piece’
Don't forget the Chesterfield!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Electron
Ikea mobile application has little speaker near the product name that invokes pronunciation - sadly, that's not available on desktop site. I still tend to read Swedish accented letters in these names as German umlauts.
So that wouldn't be a problem if Polish names would be provided with audio examples.
By the way, the communistic period here was full of products using regular words, name of places or people’s names. We had Wisła, Bieszczady wall units. First Polish color TV was Jowisz (Jupiter); first TV ever my mother had was called Szafir (Saphire). Then Szarotka (elderweis) or Sylwia radios from 50s and 60s respectively. A clone of IBM PC with Intel 8086 (or with Russian clone) from 1986 was called Mazovia - Mazowsze which is a historical region of Poland, same name was also used for DOS encoding for that machine.
The German vowels are a good start, but Swedish pronunciation is of course a little bit vowel shifted from German.
You have a point but in Branding, it is accepted that bold (noisy) and distinctive (rather than only descriptive) names are an advantage: Creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adyIaTopO6g&t=610 (Jun 2025).
Every startup is named like these though so it is sorta biased.
E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs
> In other parts of the world, they are basically incomprehensible, but fun!
For some reason unknown to either of us it really pisses off my wife when I refer to our IKEA furniture by the Swedish names. I think it stems from a deep seated disdain she has for flat pack furniture.
Me: where’s the thing?
Wife: in the white cupboard
Me: which white cupboard? There are 6
Wife: the white cupboard opposite the piano
Me: the Brimnes?
Wife: >.<
Exactly the right amount of chaos, particular given that the Brimnes "series" encompasses a pretty wide range of configurations and form factors:
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/cat/brimnes-series-700496/
We are both calling our callax callax and hate it the equal amount. (The word as well as the piece of furniture)
This is exactly why the names work
Similar conversation I've had with my partner in the past few hours:
Me: it's beside the piano
Her: Which piano?
Me: The Ensoniq upstairs
Are you the staring Brazilian piano player?
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
I love the JERKER desk that I bought 26 years ago, so I assume this rule must be younger than that.
I was at IKEA once when they first came to America and there was a chair that was called the "assengråbben" or something like that.
I heard a guy nearby telling the person with him "must be for the interns".
There is a lamp called Fartyg
As a Swede, my first reaction was "what's wrong with calling it 'ship'?"
Took me several seconds to get it.
Don't forget the children's workbench: FARTFULL
meaning speedy
Perhaps even the source of that rule.
Pax is another one that violates the rule that someone pointed out lower. Also Malm is a surname which is another violation of the rule (one of the characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was named, if I recall correctly, Stefan Malm). I remember reading the books with my then-wife and she said it was like reading an IKEA catalog. I thought she was referring to the character/place names, but it turned out that the second book had a long section where the titular girl furnishes an apartment from IKEA and—that chapter was exactly like reading an IKEA catalog.
Although "Malm" is a common surname, it's a word first and a name second if that makes sense
The same way "Brown" is common surname in English but mostly makes you think of the color first
When it comes to names like "MALM", it's likely incidental.
"Malm" is a a noun with several meanings, most notably "metal ore", but also some (more archaic) meanings like "area with sandy soil" or "city outskirts".
The fact that "Malm" also happens to be a surname is secondary; Swedish has a lot of surnames that are simply ordinary nouns or adjectives. A completely literal "No surnames, ever" rule would probably be quite a bit too restrictive. I suspect that the actual internal rule is "No names that are primarily (or solely) surnames", or something to that effect.
If I remember correctly, the second book was published posthumously, and my guess is the editor's hands were tied.
Malm was released in the 1980s: https://techvibeblog.com/what-is-ikea-malm-made-of/
Girl with the dragon tattoo was released in 2005
Currently 6833 people in Sweden have the last name "Malm", and some large fraction of them were born before 2005 (could not be bothered to check how many, sorry!).
I believe you, but that site reeks of LLM generated SEO junk
You’ve let your biases affect your analysis
You know the saying... a "Do not step on the grass" sign only shows up after people start frequently stepping on the grass...
Chevy "no va" https://www.thoughtco.com/chevy-nova-that-wouldnt-go-3078090
You also have the Mitsubishi Pajero. Feel free to find the derogatory term in the wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero
Similar trivia with a Swedish connection: the original name of the Honda Fit/Jazz was Honda Fitta, but then they found out it's the Swedish word for "cunt" so that was a no-go.
Article is missing the urban legend about "Bite the wax tadpole"
Yes, they also sold a toilet brush named "VIREN". In Germany this is the plural of virus. And some year ago Danes complained IKEA named carpets and runner after danish towns but never something "better".
An excellent desk, by the way. I still have mine (the old heavy duty model)!
I'm happy to say I'm in the circle of jer...Um...So do I, one of the best home purchases I've ever made!
Holy crap that's my desk too, bought about 24 years ago. It's been a great desk. Gray frame with black work area/shelves.
I guess at the time the name was funny too but I had forgotten it.
I didn’t even know the name for the longest time. It’s only when I wanted to buy some extensions that I realized the cult status of that model, and that’s not (just) because of the name. It’s a truly great design and a shame that it was discontinued many years ago.
The $50USD Bluetooth speakers "NATTBAD" gave us a good chuckle.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/nattbad-bluetooth-speaker-yello...
IKEA is the new "fast fashion", but for furniture.
You buy something one day, and it starts to deteriorate and become janky after a year, and you'll have a buy a new one. All products have gone through spreadsheet cost optimizations.
It wasn't always like that. If you're lucky to get your hands on an old IKEA bookshelf (Billy), it's sturdy and will last forever.
We’ve had IKEA furniture for over 15 years, sometimes storing it in the attic for a few years after disassembling it, then assembling it again. We’ve also kept the main bodies of our living room furniture while replacing the doors. We sold the old doors on eBay, and other people reused them.
I also inherited some “regular” living room furniture after my mom passed away. It cost about four times as much as IKEA’s higher-end lines. After moving it from my mom’s place to my office, I can already see it falling apart after just three years (total lifetime as my mom only had it for two). The quality is so shite that I honestly wish my mom had bought IKEA.
In the future, I’ll either buy custom pieces from a furniture maker or choose IKEA's higher end lines for longevity and reusability.
I have no experience with newer IKEA furniture, as my old IKEA furniture seems to last forever.
Even the stuff they've traditionally been good at?
Funny thing is, I haven't bought much furniture for ages since my old IKEA stuff has lasted for several decades and is still going strong. Their major kitchen appliances are crap, though.
> You buy something one day, and it starts to deteriorate and become janky after a year, and you'll have a buy a new one
I had a LACK table (9.99 euros at time of acquisition) last for 10 years before a move forced me to give it away. I also have a few random things from them (wooden cutting board, grater, I think a bookshelf) and everything is pretty OK, even the cheap stuff.
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?
If that's true, I wonder how many years it will take to use up the remaining unused Swedish words.
The Swedish Academy <https://www.svenskaakademien.se/en> has a word list (SAOL <https://svenska.se/om/om-ordbockerna/#saol>) of around 127,600 current Swedish words, and a Swedish dictionary including historic words from 1521 until today (SAOB <https://www.saob.se/>) of around 500,000 words.
The dictionary was started in 1898 and completed in 2023(!)
It is funny how those name often sound differently than intended in other languages while still remaining memetic. My best example is "Knorrig" as it sounds like a fun name for a pig since "knur" is a male ping in Polish.
That fits, because "knorr" is Swedish for a pig's tail!
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?
It's more likely that the whole product catalog contains 2-3k products. [1][2][3] So no, you don't.
[1] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/products-products [2] https://lar5.com/ikea (~ 2200) [3] https://namingschemes.com/Ikea_Product_Names (~ 1300)
When [3] contains half as many as [2] it should be a good sign to take pause to consider both could be faaaar from exhaustive. [1] is just a link to a page of links, it doesn't really say anything about how many total named products there are. Meanwhile, https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ranjithpanicker/ikea-global-... claims "34,932 unique global products" and Ikea Canada alone claims ~12k products https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/newsroom/corporate-news/ikea-cana...
Why should we treat a minor wiki page and some dude's personal site (who disagree with each other on totals) as authoritative proof Ikea is wrong about it's own catalog? Especially when it's not hard to find 1st/3rd party sources claiming an order of magnitude more products. Keep in mind, some things will also fall off the catalog over time.
I’m going to guess that a good chunk of products are named but never released. I’d love to know what products IKEA develops but decides to not release.
They are so hard to pronounce and remember to me that might as well be UUIDs
Chiming in for the Ikea fans - you should definitely listen to the Acquired episode about it! It was fantastic and covered this and other fun facts https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/ikea
A while ago I worked on a product which created a lot of media files for the user, and these files all needed to be named in a unique - yet human-pronouncable manner.
We considered using something like what3words[1], but then one bright dev came up with a way of constructing a filename using phonemes derived from the names of Austrian philosophers ..
This worked so well, for some reason - whether selection bias in the list created by the CEO for the purpose (putting that degree to good use, finally), or maybe just because Austrian philosophers all have great names for the purpose.
I confess that I do think about this a lot, as I am lost in the endless maze of Ikea stuff on my way for some meatballs.
Edit: I couldn't resist, it looks something like this:
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words> Sofas → Swedish place names
Looks like some of these place names have been overpowered in search results by their named-for sofa counterparts! When searching Finnala, Sweden, I essentially only get search results for the sofa, and even the Google AI overview, while admitting it's a locality in Sweden, shows me a picture of the sofa!
About 25 years ago, one rule was that everything related to the toilets was in Danish. He said it was the Swedish Danish rivalry.
The Fräck mirror was named after the commonly used faux swear word on Battlestar Galactica, where one of the characters used a similar mirror:
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/fraeck-mirror-stainless-steel-3...
And then, unbeknownst to what the Sci-Fi future might bring, an Italian home appliance manufacturer names themselves SMEG.
You may say that "There's too much confusion", ha!
Amazing. A post asks a question in the title that I actually want answered, and then goes on to answer that question clearly and succinctly. Maybe the best corporate content I've seen this year.
But how can I find the answer to the question without reading punchy headers followed by paragraphs like
> How We Leverage Naming
> Our Naming Strategy, Explained
> Why Swedish Is Important
> The Bottom Line
And unforgettable aphorisms like
> It isn't just a name—it is the output of a scalable, globally coordinated, linguistically validated, Swedish-inspired naming framework designed to optimize brand consistency
to let me know? I'm completely lost on this page and can't find the answer without these.
How am I supposed to know what matters if they don't tell me, in an honest fashion?
the real caveat: those descriptions are genuinely load bearing
If the names are not load bearing, are they even names anymore?
It’s not load bearing, it’s a way of life.
The names just hit different.
May I introduce you to the UK chain Iceland and their stance on management consultants?
https://about.iceland.co.uk/our-story/the-dark-ages/beware-m...
The entire section of the website about 'The Dark Ages' is priceless. They don't pull any punches: https://about.iceland.co.uk/our-story/the-dark-ages/
Just brilliant!
This is fckn brilliant!!
I’m bookmarking it for sharing
Brilliant.
Submit it to Hacker News as its own post before I do.
Seriously.
You have one hour.
I agree, and it's kind of sad that getting simple, clear communication is exceptional.
It does not answer at all. 2000-3000 names per year?
As a Swede in London, it's annoying that IKEA staff don't understand you when you pronounce the names correctly.
You have to change letters (e.g. å is not a with an accent. It's a different letter) and read it like you don't know the language.
I'd suggest you look at it as funny and not annoying: IKEA in London, being a very multicultural place, likely has many non-native English speakers as well!
When all else fails, you can always go back to the basic international language of gesturing, pointing and acting out the use of something to get to your point. (Or more boringly, point at the name on your phone)
You could also try adapting pronounciation to what they might expect first, and then if you establish a friendly conversation, offer the real Swedish pronounciation next.
It sounds like that would be very much what use of Swedish names in a global brand should invite, and not annoyance for Swedes :)
> you can always go back to the basic international language of gesturing,
Doesn't really work for the kind of products they sell. E.g. going to the spare parts place and asking for a replacement part for Mörbylånga or Nackanäs. And I don't know the international gesture for a table. Besides, they have many tables.
I don't think saying "Bläddra", and signing that you're flipping through a book, helps at all either.
> You could also try adapting pronounciation to what they might expect
Right. This is what one has to do. But it feels like if you were to go to Russia and slowly and loudly say "I-ski want-ski a-ski table-ski". Except, you know, not offensive because I have the objectively right way to say it and the staff doesn't.
I'm not saying it's hard to do, but since once you know a language you pretty much cannot go back to hearing and reading it as noise, I stand by that it's a bit annoying to need to simulate how someone else would mispronounce it.
And this is unlike someone experiencing their names constantly mispronounced, because the people who get it wrong literally work for IKEA.
For comparison, say there was an English store in Netherlands, and you would have to look at the spelling every time in order to "simulate" which "s" should become "sch" to make the staff understand you. Saying it the dutch way may, to you, become a tongue twister.
> It sounds like that would be very much what use of Swedish names in a global brand should invite, and not annoyance for Swedes :)
You'd think so, but while a great brand, it causes practical annoyances sometimes.
They have a great selection of products. You could say they have a smörgåsbord of products. Or as you'd have to say in English to be understood, a schmoargoesboard.
> But it feels like if you were to go to Russia and slowly and loudly say "I-ski want-ski a-ski table-ski".
As much as it may feel that way sometimes, I don't think IKEAs in foreign countries are sovereign Swedish territory.
I think Netherlands is a bad example, because all locals I've met there speak perfect English, and a visitor learns that fast!
As a related anecdote, I found it surprising when I moved to Switzerland decades ago, that speaking high German wouldn't really work with foreign-looking shop assistants - they'd only speak and even understand Swiss German.
This is the mutley crueh story all over again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut
> When Mötley Crüe visited Germany, singer Vince Neil said the band could not figure out why "the crowds were chanting, 'Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!'"
But like those German speakers assumed German orthography, English speakers will assume English orthography when presented with Swedish words.
Only foreign words learned by sound have a chance of getting pronounced correctly, e.g. croissant or Djokovic... maybe even Smörgåsbord?
If there were a British furniture shop operating globally and using placenames for products, British people would have trouble asking the locals for HAWICK (hoik), LOUGHBOROUGH (luffburra), FROME (froom) or YNYSYBWL (anissabul)
They didn't assume German pronunciation without reason. The umlaut dots aren't for decoration in German and ä, ö, ü only sound one way - including in Swedish, which has ä and ö, too. There is no ü in Swedish maybe because the Swedish u sounds like the German ü already.
> As a Swede in London
At least you’re definitely right.
Try speaking or writing English English to US English natives.
By extension from Chinese, you could call it "English (Standard)" and "English (Simplified)".
I was surprised at a Jysk in Spain where I used the dialect pronunciation of a Norwegian city (saying Læknes for Leknes) when buying chairs with that name, and the girl not only understood me but used close to the same pronunciation when asking someone to get them from storage
Do you find ABBA's English pronunciation/phrasing annoying?
This comic used to be viral in Russia in the 2010s: https://m.vk.ru/wall-28208003_16956.
(The dialogue goes, "Somewhere deep inside Ikea HQ: How shall we name the lamp?" "GNVÖERK.")
I remember that in Dutch product catalogs, IKEA often used the name Gammelgaard (referring to Niels Gammelgaard, a Danish product designer). In Dutch, "gammel" means "rickety. "
Sofas → Swedish place names
Bookshelves → men's names
For Swedes it must be weird to be able to find a product named after yourself and your place!
I’d have guessed they used names that Swedes were less likely to identify with than names of places and people.
> For Swedes it must be weird to be able to find a product named after yourself and your place!
Plenty of people named Billy in the English speaking world, too.
The product names have made me chuckle quite a few times in the past. Such an easy way to make your products more likeable.
Also, maybe semi-relevant: I made a small guessing game about the IKEA product catalogue in case someone wants to be lightly entertainment for two minutes [1].
[1] https://deriese.net/ikeaguesser.html?s=hn
This is so random. I had just pulled this exact page up this morning to settle a debate with coworkers over whether the product names were real Swedish words or not. I thought they were all made up!
Was very surprised to find things like “bookshelves are all men’s names”, “all names must have ä, å, or ö”, etc.
Complete coincidence that this is #2 today. Had to check that ’NaOH’ wasn’t one of my coworkers
A lot of them are Scandi place names, too.
> preferably contain the letters Å, Ä or Ö
Yes, but why prefer these letters?
I don’t know Swedish. Is it because these diacritics make the names seem more exotic?
Those are the letters we have that are distinct from English. Not exotic to us, but yeah, "weird letters" is probably considered part of the international brand now.
By the way, we consider them unique letters, not A and O with diacritics. The Swedish alphabet goes …XYZÅÄÖ.
Oh, and I just learned that we only officially added W in 2006. Before that, it was considered a variant of V. We still pronounce them the same, which is why many swedes will mix them up when speaking English. Mostly in the W->V direction, but I've heard the opposite happen too.
I lived in Sweden in the late nineties. The local phone book had my Dutch name sorted under the V & W section because it has the word 'van' (means of in English) in it. In the Netherlands my name would be in the G section (van Gurp) because otherwise most of the phone book would have to be sorted under the V, which would defeat the purpose of sorting.
> The Swedish alphabet goes …XYZÅÄÖ.
IKEA sold that too: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306072403869
Huh, interesting that they are collated at the end. These differences also makes sorting language dependent.
In Hungarian it's A, Á, B, C, Cs, D, Dz, Dzs, E, É, F... So Cu--- comes before Cs---
Just to make things worse, the Scandinavian languages use different versions of what have historically been the same letters, and collate them differently. E.g. Norwegian has æ (Ä), ø (Ö), å, collated in that order. Technically the Swedish variants are not part of the Norwegian alphabet, but they're typically collated with their modern Norwegian equivalents.
At least in Norwegian, ae, oe, and aa is also traditionally collated as if they were using these letters, so a word starting "aa" comes at the end of the alphabet, after z, oe and ae....
At least Danish and Norwegian share the order; the order is ÆØÅ in Danish as well :-)
Which has resulted in this catastrophe:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71OSnDl45vL.jpg
Even worse, in Czech it’s
A B C Č D Ď E F G H Ch I J…
• „če“ goes after both „ca“ and „ci“, but „ác“ goes between „ab“ and „ad“
• „cha“ goes after „da“ and „ha“
Not sure why, but when I see certain diacritics with latin alphabet, my brain tries to place the language somewhere in Europe. I don't know if I can call that an exotic feeling but it certainly feels foreign.
Häagen-Dazs is American, but was apparently meant to sound Danish. To a Scandinavian it absolutely doesn't.
Scandinavia and the Nordics are quite fancy and refined for Americans. Lagom, hygge, fika, the minimalism, the enlightened equality and solidarity, good education, little crime, highest happiness ratings, even prisons are like hotels, etc makes it a kind of imagined lifestyle that's cozy and thoughtful and so on.
That's how they getcha, and then go full midsommar...
Could also be Vietnamese, they are big on diacritics.
Vietnamese can easily be recognized because most words are one syllable and the vowel may even have two diacritics stacked on top.
Thanks to French, who came up with the current writing system.
A Portuguese Jesuit, actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Pina
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_branding (especially the Foreign Orthography section)
I guess it helps with emphasizing their Swedish identity, which is one of their goals with naming. Doesn't gel too well with "feels good to say" for a non-native speaker, but I see their point.
Yeah, given they sell to every continent, I find it utterly impossible they truly tested this with each of the dozens to hundreds of languages their customers speak.
Most likely. In the early 90s there was a knock-off of Ikea called Stør which used the ø for exoticism. I had assumed that it was a Danish company, but apparently, not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STØR (The store where I bought some of my first furniture from—off the 60 in City of Industry—was quite possibly the original location).
> knock-off of ikea
We have one called jysk... They're doing alright.
> I don’t know Swedish. Is it because these diacritics make the names seem more exotic?
of course. Haagen Dazs, Motorhead, etc have known it loooong ago
Pöyzen Böyzen
Yës
Why not rename to IKEÅ ?
Because it would then be pronounced IKE-Oh.
Also, the A is short for Agunnaryd, the founder's hometown. (IK is his initials, Ingvar Kamprad, and E is for Elmtaryd, his family farm.)
The A can still stand for Agunnaryd and the circle at the top can be the midnight sun, which embodies the sprit of Sweden
To reiterate on another comment that would make no sense to Swedish speakers. Å is a distinct letter, with a different and unique vowel sound. It is in no way "a slightly different kind of A".
Your suggestion sounds a bit like spelling Apple like AIILE and using the circles to form a cool infinity symbol. Or something.
You mean öf cårse?
Håhåhåhå
Nordic nod of approval
röck döts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut
A møøse once bit my sister...
I raise you an em-dash —̈ with an umlaut!
Suck on that, AI Slop Detector!
(Confession and question for dang: I actually used an LLM to generate that unicode composite to copy and paste —̈ is that against HN guidelines?)
I always assumed the names were mostly random Swedish words picked for the vibe. The fact that there's a taxonomy behind them makes it much funnier somehow
One of my go-to dad jokes is to see Ikea furniture at someone's house and ask "Is that a möstliglü [table|cabinet|etc]?"
I'm firmly in camp dad joke, but since Ü is a German letter that is not part of the Swedish alphabet, may I suggest you learn how to say RÄKSMÖRGÅS and update the joke?
The patched version might even work on some Swedish-speakers if you nail the pronounciation! :)
> preferably contain the letters Å, Ä or Ö
I always thought it's just a natural consequence of using Swedish language, turns out it's on purpose!
Swedish does naturally use a lot of letters with umlauts (e.g. a common plural suffix -är), so a noun with a special letter is usually not hard to come by, and looks more Swedish (than, say, Dutch or English, which are sort of cousin languages).
This comments section was one of the most entertaining (and weirdly instructive!) I ever read.
I learned (some) Swedish at age of 35 and it was quite a moment when IKEA product names became meaningful to me. Plate PLATE, fun!
Pretty much like when as a kid I learned enough of English to realize all those songs around actually have lyrics, pretty dumb sometimes
My first memory of being angry with not knowing English was when we were trying to read the pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards and I clearly remember it being gibberish. Otherwise it's difficult to remember what it was like to not know a skill before you learned it, at least it is for me.
Ever since I heard this song, it now always plays in my head whenever IKEA comes up - have a listen while reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4si8w8WMFc
(Rob Paravonian - Particle Board) - of Dr. Demento, etc., fame.
If you ever find yourself in southern Sweden (or Copenhagen and fancy a train ride across a cool bridge) the IKEA museum at Älmhult is well worth a visit: https://ikeamuseum.com/en/
I was there three days ago, can comfirm. And if you want to stay overnight, you _of course_ sleep in the neighbouring IKEA Hotel! And if you check-in to the hotel first, you‘ll get a voucher for free entrance to the museum. Did I mention that an absolutely excellent breakfast is included in the very reasonable room rate? And in case you visit the museum in the near future, they currently have a special (temporary) exhibition about IKEA's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was a very creative but also exceptionally socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneur. Nice contrast to today's appalling tech billionaires.
For future person who also thinks...wait...IKEA has a hotel...?? Indeed:
https://www.ikeahotell.com/en/about-us/
https://www.fastcompany.com/91529069/what-its-like-to-stay-i...
British lad giving a review/tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trcUc9ILYqI
But, in common with today's tech billionaires, ties to the Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#Fascist_involve...
My Swedish friend told me they make the more expensive things to sound more Swedish and the cheaper stuff to sound Norwegian.
Any speakers of either language able to confirm or deny?
This article from 2018 claims the same (and that Danish sounding names are rugs and floormats): https://www.worldnomads.com/in-the-news/the-hidden-message-i...
Not with AI that's for sure
Hoven means Excrements in Czech (in 2nd case)
So when IKEA had Hoven sale - Doprodej Hoven (Excrements sale), people were amused
https://www.lidovky.cz/byznys/ikea-narazila-s-nazvy-vyrobku-...
so much for "Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages"
Bedroom and living room furniture is named after Norwegian places
Nice, How to use that strategy for software? But first It makes sense?
> preferably contain the letters Å, Ä or Ö
I'm 100% för this.
Hahaha for sure
As someone named after an IKEA chair, I can testify I took no offense while assembling myself. https://manuall.co.uk/ikea-bertil-chair/
https://zagge.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/13333008.jpg
Translation:
I had assumed it involved a dartboard.
I love how the chose Verde, which means value, for their long time retired kitchen furniture. They were so good that they still sell above their original retail prices now.
I hope that green items are especially prized!
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
Hey Donna [1]...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2oje4cYxw
> Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, had a hard time remembering numbers and numbers
And also numbers I assume. Does it mean something like “endless stream of numbers”?
I’m very surprised that they have 2000-3000 new products every year. Checking every name against every language of countries they operate in to avoid “bad” names must be a pain.
The Swedish version of the page just says "siffror" (literally "digits", but colloquially "numbers") once.
I'm not aware of any relevant Swedish expression that would repeat the same word like that. Maybe something like "siffror och tal", where both words could be translated as "numbers" by someone not paying attention to the resulting sentence. :)
A subdivision of people who know every obscenity in the world would be chuckleworthy, but I guess they use a validation program.
Well, that institutional knowledge has been accumulated, held, and passed down through generations of DMV workers in the USA.
And yet some still get through!
I’ve seen “LILCHYT” and “MYSHART” on the road recently.
Seems like a mistake. No expression like that in Swedish at least.
I figured they just let a Dala horse walk around on top of a bunch of keyboards and whatever string comes out is the new name?
I always just thought Swedish had a lot of words for "crap".
Ikea used to make somewhat reasonable and affordable products, that, in total were much higher quality than their price point suggested.
Now they are just cheap, on almost every metric.
The thing is that recent products are crappy. I got so many decades old secondhand things. They looked like regular old furniture and it was fine. Then I continued buying same things, but new. While the old furniture didn’t change at all the new pieces became yellow/brown after couple tears. We don’t smoke!!! It was a nightmare and I don’t buy IKEA products anymore.
Sometimes it works and name are weird, nice and fun. But sometimes, quite a lot, I think that it is counter productive because the name is hard to remember, spell or say if local language.
So in the end, hard to say to a seller or type on the part screen the name of what you want. Most of the time you will not be able to remember what was the name of the thing and have to look around and find by categories to find again what you are looking for. And forgot the name already 3 days after. And actually i was multiple time annoyed by that. For example, look at the baby changing table name: ÄLSKVÄRD.
Also, hard to remember/pronounce name make it that often you are lost and confused between multiple names that doesn't make any sense to you like HFEREZR versus HORCRUX.
One case that frustrated me a lot is: good luck finding which white cabinet door you need to buy between VEDDINGE and VALLSTENA that are 99,9% the same, and have the same description on ikea website and shops... In the warehouse you are looking for it, you look for the thing starting with the V, like VA...VII... something, and you find VEDDINGE. Was it this one i needed to be or another name similar?
I think your actual issue is that spelling and pronunciation are too inconsistent in your native language. With a more consistent language, it's pretty easy to remember foreign words and names using the pronunciation in your native language, assuming that the letters are mostly the same. You don't need to understand the word or know the correct pronunciation (though both obviously help).
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile
If I remember correctly, they had a desk named "JERKER" in early 2000s.
That's (sadly) a Swedish name, yes.
I think it's a pretty cool name. But it's pronounced more like "Yeah"-rker.
Yeah, large part of the world reads J as Y in ye/yi combinations in English, even if they'd giggle at what it means in English.
I worked with a guy called Jerker at IBM in Greenock, who soon learned to give back as good as he got. Swedish people can be pretty sarcastic, so he was what you'd call a "good cultural fit".
iirc they had a light bulb named TEST. like, I want a real bulb not a test one.
The GÖÅTSE toilet seat? For some reason their little thumbs up / down icon made me think of this.
> Bookshelves → men's names
That's sexist. Saying women don't read books? /s
Maybe