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How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

ikea.com

241–250 of 342 posts

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

#241

> 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.

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

#242

> 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 swear this is untrue. Half the names of ikea products allude to funny words in German.

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

#243

> 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.

Do IKEA have farthinders in their parking lots?

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

#244

> 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 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.

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

#245
post #151

> 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…

We are both calling our callax callax and hate it the equal amount. (The word as well as the piece of furniture)

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BYDGOSZCZ sofa This may not even be that far off from reality, looking at the sort of names rando brands on Amazon often have...

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.

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

#247
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.

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.

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

#248
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.

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

#250

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.

> 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.

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