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
How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
181–190 of 342 posts
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#182One 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! :)
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#183> 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(!)
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#184> 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.
[deleted]
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#185For 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?
If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.
Basque would be truly weird since it is one of a few known language isolates
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
At least Danish and Norwegian share the order; the order is ÆØÅ in Danish as well :-)
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#187Sofas → 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.
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.
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!
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#189Sofas → 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.
Re: How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.
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.