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.
- designerarvid
Clear and interesting names is extremely good customer experience. Most companies name their products straight from the ERP system, creating incomprehensible codes that sounds like they come from Star Trek.
Ikea has pioneered so much within service design (design beyond the actual product). The in-store journey, the self-assembly, the assembly instructions, clear naming, clear product display, in-store restaurant experience. The list goes on.
After Ingvar Kamprad retired, he continued travelling the world to do store inspections. Full-day walkthroughs that started in the morning at the loading bay and continued throughout the store. Everything was inspected and a list of follow-up actions was created for the store manager.
- markvdb
> 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.
- rootbear
I was looking at IKEA's home automation stuff, some of which uses the name TRÅDFRI and I thought the "FRI" part sounded like "free" and sure enough this just means "wireless". I'm guessing the "TRÅD" part is possibly a cognate of English "thread", so "thread free" is a literal translation. (I don't speak Swedish so forgive me if I'm completely off on this.)
- senko
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.
- dspillett
> Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages
This procedure does not always work: https://adland.tv/whats-name-case-2351-ikeas-gutvik-bunk-bed
- hk__2
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?
I find this surprisingly high; I guess it’s _products_ and not _names_, meaning that five colors of the same product count as five new products but only one name.
- azibi
Fun Dutch observation:
IKEA’s ANTILOP high chair sounds like “anti lopen” in Dutch.
“lopen” = “to walk”
So the name can be interpreted as “anti walking” or “prevents your baby from walking away.”
I know it’s actually named after the animal (antelope), but the accidental Dutch wordplay is perfect for a baby chair.
- 7734128
The door mats are mostly named after places in Denmark, as they should be.
- Eduard
> contain between 4 and 12 letters
PAX
- fy20
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?