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How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
- TheExaltd4 1mo ago[flagged]
- bcaulfield 1mo agoAmazing. 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.
- lefra 1mo agoI agree, and it's kind of sad that getting simple, clear communication is exceptional.
- usui 1mo agoBut 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.
- applfanboysbgon 1mo agoHow am I supposed to know what matters if they don't tell me, in an honest fashion?
- deadbunny 1mo agoMay 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-management-consultants/ https://about.iceland.co.uk/our-story/the-dark-ages/beware-m...
- Nux 1mo agoJust brilliant!
- hadrien01 1mo agoThe 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/ https://about.iceland.co.uk/our-story/the-dark-ages/
- bcaulfield 1mo agoBrilliant. Submit it to Hacker News as its own post before I do. Seriously. You have one hour.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- aanet 1mo agoThis is fckn brilliant!! I’m bookmarking it for sharing
- rvba 1mo agoIt does not answer at all. 2000-3000 names per year?
- close04 1mo ago> 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.
- red75prime 1mo agoA subdivision of people who know every obscenity in the world would be chuckleworthy, but I guess they use a validation program.
- ButlerianJihad 1mo agoWell, that institutional knowledge has been accumulated, held, and passed down through generations of DMV workers in the USA.
- devmor 1mo agoAnd yet some still get through! I’ve seen “LILCHYT” and “MYSHART” on the road recently.
- Snild 1mo agoThe 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. :)
- victorbjorklund 1mo agoSeems like a mistake. No expression like that in Swedish at least.
- Xirdus 1mo ago> 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!
- nine_k 1mo agoSwedish 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).
- joshdavham 1mo ago> 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?
- elwell 1mo agoYës
- tstenner 1mo agoYou mean öf cårse?
- joshdavham 1mo agoHåhåhåhå
- arnarbi 1mo agoNordic nod of approval
- qurren 1mo agoWhy not rename to IKEÅ ?
- decimalenough 1mo agoBecause 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.)
- qurren 1mo agoThe A can still stand for Agunnaryd and the circle at the top can be the midnight sun, which embodies the sprit of Sweden
- 1mo ago
- dvaplima 1mo agoNice, How to use that strategy for software? But first It makes sense?
- fy20 1mo agoFor 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?
- RugnirViking 1mo agoits 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?
- fyltr 1mo agoNitpicking 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.
- schoen 1mo agoGNOME 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.
- dylan604 1mo ago
- tverbeure 1mo ago> 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.
- rtkwe 1mo agoPerhaps even the source of that rule.
- dhosek 1mo agoPax 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.
- jagaerglad 1mo agoAlthough "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
- BambooleanLogic 1mo agoWhen 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.
- whalesalad 1mo agoI 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?
- zer00eyz 1mo agoI 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.
- lnsru 1mo agoThe 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.
- Eduard 1mo ago> contain between 4 and 12 letters PAX https://www.ikea.com/de/en/cat/pax-system-19086/ https://www.ikea.com/de/en/cat/pax-system-19086/
- kzrdude 1mo agoIs 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.
- sixtyj 1mo agoThe exception that proves the rule :) It reminds some system - they didn’t allow “other” category for sorting features, but someone came with “999” :)
- kripy 1mo agoClue to their DB setup?
- kalleboo 1mo agoPAX has been around since 1992 so probably predates any "rules"
- 7734128 1mo agoThe door mats are mostly named after places in Denmark, as they should be.
- reaperducer 1mo agoThe door mats should be named after doors, and the place mats named after places.
- dotancohen 1mo agoMaybe the door mats should be called Matthew, Matityahu, Matti, Mattes, Matthias. The rubber ducky (yes, they sell one) could be called Bob.
- ErikCorry 1mo agoThe toilet seat is named after the strait between Denmark and Sweden. https://youtu.be/ajBN0Xypi0I https://youtu.be/ajBN0Xypi0I
- jxub 1mo agoAnd one of them, "Trampa", means "trap" or "cheating" in Spanish
- junaru 1mo ago> 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2oje4cYxw
- hk__2 1mo ago> 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.
- eloisant 1mo agoThey 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.
- prmoustache 1mo agoAlso they insist on replacing perfectly good products to sell inferior ones (for bigger margins I guess). Every visitor rave about and ask us where we bought our corkscrew but we can only reply it was in IKEA but they decided they are too good for us so replaced them with inferior ones. Same happened wuth a vegetable peeler that I let go when I divorced but should have fought for because I never found one as good and IKEA enshittification made sure I can't buy it again.
- jansan 1mo agoI 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.
- nine_k 1mo agoI hope that green items are especially prized!
- senko 1mo agoMy favorite is `fejka` for the artificial plant/flower. I think "being as widely-understandable pun as possible" is definitely one of their naming priorities.
- kube-system 1mo agoWant a nice wardrobe? Well vuk u, you get this one: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vuku-wardrobe-white-80331973/ 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/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-white-30449908/
- koolba 1mo ago> Need an end table that is lacking? End table? That’s a server rack: https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/List_of_IkeaRacks https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/List_of_IkeaRacks
- tarxvf 1mo agoserver lack
- senko 1mo agoI love Lack, really versatile piece of furniture/equipment! Not lacking at all :)
- cassianoleal 1mo agoServer rack? That’s a 3D printer enclosure! https://www.printables.com/model/76318-ikea-lack-enclosure-3-variants-modular https://www.printables.com/model/76318-ikea-lack-enclosure-3...
- djhworld 1mo agoSadly the materials in the lack changed over time, the insides are basically just cardboard honeycomb with a thin veneer around it. So if you want to follow the lack mods on the web, especially ones written in the 2010s, you need to make sure you strengthen the legs to accommodate the hardware
- jannyfer 1mo agoThe $50USD Bluetooth speakers "NATTBAD" gave us a good chuckle. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/nattbad-bluetooth-speaker-yellow-70601611/ https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/nattbad-bluetooth-speaker-yello...
- dofm 1mo agoI had assumed it involved a dartboard.
- plaidfuji 1mo agoThis 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
- kzrdude 1mo agoA lot of them are Scandi place names, too.
- culebron21 1mo agohttps://zagge.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/13333008.jpg https://zagge.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/13333008.jpg Translation: Somewhere inside IKEA. - How do we call the table lamp? - GNVOERK
- mig39 1mo agoThe 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-38006200/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/fraeck-mirror-stainless-steel-3...
- pndy 1mo agoYou may say that "There's too much confusion", ha!
- wowczarek 1mo agoAnd then, unbeknownst to what the Sci-Fi future might bring, an Italian home appliance manufacturer names themselves SMEG.
- reddalo 1mo agoSMEG stands for Emilian (the Italian region) Metallurgical Enamels in Guastalla (a town close to Reggio Emilia).
- wowczarek 1mo agoOh I know this, but [0] and [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf#Hallmarks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf#Hallmarks - a brief explanation [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvXWl2UxXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvXWl2UxXc - a compilation of all smegs in Red Dwarf
- zeroq 1mo ago> 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 https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/products-products [2] https://lar5.com/ikea https://lar5.com/ikea (~ 2200) [3] https://namingschemes.com/Ikea_Product_Names https://namingschemes.com/Ikea_Product_Names (~ 1300)
- zamadatix 1mo agoWhen [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-product-catalog-and-price-2026 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-canadas-2026-federal-pre-budget-submission-pub8b8a1170/#:~:text=IKEA%20Canada%20carries%20over%2012%2C000%20products. 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.
- mbreese 1mo agoI’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.
- Loic 1mo agoAbout 25 years ago, one rule was that everything related to the toilets was in Danish. He said it was the Swedish Danish rivalry.
- wowczarek 1mo agoEver 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4si8w8WMFc (Rob Paravonian - Particle Board) - of Dr. Demento, etc., fame.
- jonplackett 1mo agoMy 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?
- ano-ther 1mo agoThis 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-in-ikea-s-product-names https://www.worldnomads.com/in-the-news/the-hidden-message-i...
- samdbmg 1mo agoIf 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/ https://ikeamuseum.com/en/
- te0006 1mo agoI 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.
- neom 1mo agoFor future person who also thinks...wait...IKEA has a hotel...?? Indeed: https://www.ikeahotell.com/en/about-us/ https://www.ikeahotell.com/en/about-us/ https://www.fastcompany.com/91529069/what-its-like-to-stay-in-ikeas-only-hotel https://www.fastcompany.com/91529069/what-its-like-to-stay-i... British lad giving a review/tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trcUc9ILYqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trcUc9ILYqI
- fph 1mo agoBut, in common with today's tech billionaires, ties to the Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#Fascist_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#Fascist_involve...
- hobo123 1mo agoThey also had furniture built by prisoners in East Germany, and I don't think they got paid.
- driese 1mo agoThe 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 https://deriese.net/ikeaguesser.html?s=hn
- azibi 1mo agoFun 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.
- molf 1mo agoThey're called Antilopen in Dutch too, so I think most people would just associate it with the animal?
- yokoprime 1mo agoBedroom and living room furniture is named after Norwegian places
- bchapuis 1mo agoAs someone named after an IKEA chair, I can testify I took no offense while assembling myself. https://manuall.co.uk/ikea-bertil-chair/ https://manuall.co.uk/ikea-bertil-chair/
- throw-the-towel 1mo agoThis comic used to be viral in Russia in the 2010s: https://m.vk.ru/wall-28208003_16956 https://m.vk.ru/wall-28208003_16956. (The dialogue goes, "Somewhere deep inside Ikea HQ: How shall we name the lamp?" "GNVÖERK.")
- stillpointlab 1mo agoOne of my go-to dad jokes is to see Ikea furniture at someone's house and ask "Is that a möstliglü [table|cabinet|etc]?"
- unwind 1mo agoI'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! :)
- yipinwong 1mo ago> Bookshelves → men's names That's sexist. Saying women don't read books? /s
- greatgib 1mo agoSometimes 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?
- jltsiren 1mo agoI 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).
- greatgib 1mo agoThere are 2 things that are unrelated. When you can't say or pronounce a word, in most language it is hard to remember it. Also, there is the question of degree of similarity or sound of reading unknown foreign words. If you don't speak ch ok Chinese, a lot of words with different meaning will kind of read or sound the same and it will be very hard to recall and differentiate them.
- jltsiren 1mo agoMy point was that you can usually pronounce foreign words in your native language, if the alphabet is the same and your language has a straightforward mapping between spelling and pronunciation. And then you can derive the spelling from that fake pronunciation. For example, my native language is Finnish, and that approach works for most words in Germanic, Romance, and Baltic languages. Polish and Czech words are harder, as they often have too many consonants to have a Finnish pronunciation.
- arjvik 1mo ago> 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!
- dools 1mo ago> 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: >.<
- mikepurvis 1mo agoExactly 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/ https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/cat/brimnes-series-700496/
- MarceliusK 1mo agoThis is exactly why the names work
- ErroneousBosh 1mo agoSimilar 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
- orthoxerox 1mo agoAre you the staring Brazilian piano player?
- ErroneousBosh 1mo agoVinheteiro? No, although when he was about two my son would sit at one of the synths and do that stare-intensely-jab-finger-in-the-air thing. No, I just have a terrible psychological condition where I cannot say the word "no" when someone says "Hey EB I have this thing sitting in a cupboard, take it off my hands for 20 quid".
- StingyJelly 1mo ago
- novoreorx 1mo ago> 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.
- crm9125 1mo ago[dead]
- asjo 1mo agoThe Swedish Academy <https://www.svenskaakademien.se/en https://www.svenskaakademien.se/en> has a word list (SAOL <https://svenska.se/om/om-ordbockerna/#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/ https://www.saob.se/>) of around 500,000 words. The dictionary was started in 1898 and completed in 2023(!)
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- xiaodai 1mo agoNot with AI that's for sure
- slybot 1mo ago> 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.
- mikae1 1mo agoThat's (sadly) a Swedish name, yes.
- villeb2 1mo agoI think it's a pretty cool name. But it's pronounced more like "Yeah"-rker.
- necovek 1mo agoYeah, 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.
- ErroneousBosh 1mo agoI 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".
- cobbzilla 1mo agoiirc they had a light bulb named TEST. like, I want a real bulb not a test one.
- MarceliusK 1mo agoI 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
- jdkskdkdkrkr 1mo ago[flagged]
- smohnot 1mo agoChiming 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 https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/ikea
- mcintyre1994 1mo agoSofas → 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.
- eru 1mo ago> 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.
- bberkgaut 1mo agoI 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
- bigupthewhole 1mo agoMy 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.
- thomashabets2 1mo agoAs 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.
- lostlogin 1mo ago> As a Swede in London At least you’re definitely right. Try speaking or writing English English to US English natives.
- ErroneousBosh 1mo agoBy extension from Chinese, you could call it "English (Standard)" and "English (Simplified)".
- necovek 1mo agoI'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 :)
- thomashabets2 1mo ago> 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.
- acka 1mo agoI 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. "
- Markoff 1mo agoHoven 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-poradala-doprodej-hoven.A100304_105712_firmy-trhy_abc 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"
- theginger 1mo agoThe GÖÅTSE toilet seat? For some reason their little thumbs up / down icon made me think of this.
- dspillett 1mo ago> 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 https://adland.tv/whats-name-case-2351-ikeas-gutvik-bunk-bed
- MrGilbert 1mo agoI'm German, and I'd pronounce "-vik" the same as the beginning of "Victor". With a soft "w".
- MomsAVoxell 1mo ago[dead]
- kiwibyproxy 1mo agobut for most non-lended/native words, V would be pronounce like the pun intends
- markvdb 1mo ago> 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.
- fangspire 1mo agoMy favorite Ikea product name.
- hnarn 1mo agoThen maybe you'll enjoy the swedish joke ”It’s not the fart that kills, it’s the smäll” Fart means speed, smäll (smell) means impact or bang.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 1mo agoDouble wordplay, not bad. Gives “Descartes before the horse” triple entendre vibes
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- tecleandor 1mo agoI 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".
- memsom 1mo agoThe 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?
- bpacholek 1mo agoIt 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.
- martin- 1mo agoThat fits, because "knorr" is Swedish for a pig's tail!
- BrandoElFollito 1mo agoThis comments section was one of the most entertaining (and weirdly instructive!) I ever read.
- whirlwin 1mo agoIKEA 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.
- sofixa 1mo ago> 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.
- martin- 1mo agoI have no experience with newer IKEA furniture, as my old IKEA furniture seems to last forever.
- yourusername 1mo agoThey make stuff at all price points. The basic stuff is sturdy paper meant to last a few years, something like Ivar is solid (ish) wood and will outlive you.
- arexxbifs 1mo agoEven 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.
- sdoering 1mo agoWe’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.
- comboy 1mo agoThey are so hard to pronounce and remember to me that might as well be UUIDs
- mlvljr 1mo ago[dead]
- aa-jv 1mo agoA 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" [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words
- designerarvid 1mo agoClear and interesting names is extremely good customer experience. Most companies name their products straight from the ERP system, creating incomprehensible codes that sounds like they come from Star Trek. Ikea has pioneered so much within service design (design beyond the actual product). The in-store journey, the self-assembly, the assembly instructions, clear naming, clear product display, in-store restaurant experience. The list goes on. After Ingvar Kamprad retired, he continued travelling the world to do store inspections. Full-day walkthroughs that started in the morning at the loading bay and continued throughout the store. Everything was inspected and a list of follow-up actions was created for the store manager.
- throwa356262 1mo agoAt the opposite end of the spectrum we have Sony Mobile, where product names are probably assigned by their worst enemy. You can fully expect them to release a high end phone called Xperia one II 10 as successor to last year's Xperia one III And also a low-end phone called Xperia II 10 Ultra Making it impossible for buyers to know which phone to buy this year.
- fendy3002 1mo agoMicrosoft's school of naming versions, windows (95->98->xp->vista->seven->8...) and xbox (360, one, series x)
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- applfanboysbgon 1mo agoDon't worry, Microsoft has addressed their naming difficulties by determining that everything they ever make will now be called CoPilot.
- actionfromafar 1mo agoThey tried for a while to call everything .NET
- WalterBright 1mo agoMost new drugs are apparently named by the three column method - each entry in a column is a random syllable, and one syllable from each column is randomly selected.
- amai 1mo agoOr like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=you+are+an+IKEA+naming+expert.+Please+come+up+with+names+for+a+chair https://www.google.com/search?q=you+are+an+IKEA+naming+exper...
- Alien1Being 1mo ago"Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad's Nazi ties 'went deeper'" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14661582 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14661582
- attila-lendvai 1mo agono, no, no... i don't even want to know! :)
- rootbear 1mo agoI was looking at IKEA's home automation stuff, some of which uses the name TRÅDFRI and I thought the "FRI" part sounded like "free" and sure enough this just means "wireless". I'm guessing the "TRÅD" part is possibly a cognate of English "thread", so "thread free" is a literal translation. (I don't speak Swedish so forgive me if I'm completely off on this.)
- pchristensen 1mo agoThat is the correct translation, well done!
- rootbear 1mo agoCool! Thanks!
- hnarn 1mo agoEnglish and Swedish have tons of similar words since they are closely related, as do most Germanic languages. The older a word is, the more similar it usually is.
- mjmsmith 1mo agoPerhaps not their best work: https://www.ikea.com.tr/en/product/gangvag-grey-170x240-cm-large-rug-30541474 https://www.ikea.com.tr/en/product/gangvag-grey-170x240-cm-l...
- bjourne 1mo agoIKEA's naming is pure genius. I bought a few NÄMMARÖ garden chairs for my garden a few weeks ago. And the chairs really feel like the furniture the people on NÄMMARÖ - an island somewhere in the Bohuslän archipelago - have used for ages. But NÄMMARÖ doesn't exist and the chairs were made in Vietnam. Good quality though, and not too difficult to assemble.
- MS8080 1mo agofrom Swedish
- soltanov 1mo ago[dead]
- hejdndjrk 1mo ago[dead]