IKEA's Secret Naming System: Swedish Places for Sofas, Men's Names for Bookshelves
How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
IKEA names around 2,000–3,000 new products each year, following a quirky but systematic method. Sofas get Swedish place names, bookshelves get men's names, and children's products get animal or nature names. Every name must be a real word, 4–12 letters, preferably contain Å, Ä, or Ö, and avoid trademark issues or undesirable meanings in other languages. Services and communication use descriptive local names instead.
Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, had a hard time remembering numbers and numbers, so instead he decided to name his products.