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How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

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21–30 of 342 posts

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#21

> 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?

> 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

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#22

> 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.

Perhaps even the source of that rule.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#24

> 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.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#25

> 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.

[dead]

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#26
post #4

> 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.

A subdivision of people who know every obscenity in the world would be chuckleworthy, but I guess they use a validation program.

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#27

> 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.

You know the saying... a "Do not step on the grass" sign only shows up after people start frequently stepping on the grass...

Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

#28
post #4

> 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.

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.
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