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How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

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

#131

Post by tazjin »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #108
dhosek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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!).

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

#132

Post by greatgib »

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?

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

#133

Post by arjvik »

> 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!

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

#134

Post by kube-system »

senko wrote: post #40

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/

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

#135

Post by koolba »

kube-system wrote: post #134
senko wrote: post #40

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

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

#136

Post by Walf »

kube-system wrote: post #134
senko wrote: post #40

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/

"Hey, Dana…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2oje4cYxw

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

#137

Post by mbreese »

zeroq wrote: post #70

> 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)

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.

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

#138

Post by psunavy03 »

fragmede wrote: post #127
nine_k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.

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.

With a side of tasty meatballs.

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

#139

Post by dmboyd »

noir_lord wrote: post #46
fy20 wrote: post #13

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?

> 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

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

#140

Post by jltsiren »

greatgib wrote: post #132

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 ag…

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).
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