How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

I present to you "Svalka" wine glasses. Dump", rubbish heap", or easy, promiscuous woman of ill repute in informal Baltic (and Slavic?) slang.

This procedure does not always work: https://adland.tv/whats-name-case-2351-ikeas-gutvik-bunk-bed

I think "being as widely-understandable pun as possible" is definitely one of their naming priorities.

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.

We considered using something like what3words[1], but then one bright dev came up with a way of constructing a filename using phonemes derived from the names of Austrian philosophers ..

This worked so well, for some reason - whether selection bias in the list created by the CEO for the purpose (putting that degree to good use, finally), or maybe just because Austrian philosophers all have great names for the purpose.

I confess that I do think about this a lot, as I am lost in the endless maze of Ikea stuff on my way for some meatballs.

Edit: I couldn't resist, it looks something like this:

    -- Unique filename generator based on phonemes derived from the top 10
    -- most well-known Austrian philosophers (per Pantheon HPI ranking):
    -- 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein
    -- 2. Karl Popper
    -- 3. Martin Buber
    -- 4. Paul Feyerabend
    -- 5. Josef Breuer
    -- 6. Ivan Illich
    -- 7. Otto Weininger
    -- 8. Alfred Schütz
    -- 9. Otto Neurath
    -- 10. Jean Améry
    --
    -- Phonemes / syllable units extracted from the names (approximating
    -- German/English pronunciation for pronounceability):

    local PHONEMES = {
      -- Wittgenstein
      "wit", "gen", "stein", "wig", "stein",
      -- Popper
      "pop", "per", "popr",
      -- Buber
      "bu", "ber", "bub",
      -- Feyerabend
      "fey", "er", "a", "bend", "abend",
      -- Breuer
      "breu", "er", "breuer",
      -- Illich
      "il", "lich", "ill", "ich",
      -- Weininger
      "wei", "nin", "ger", "wein",
      -- Schütz (approximated without diacritics for filename safety)
      "schu", "etz", "schutz", "shuets",
      -- Neurath
      "neu", "rath", "neur",
      -- Améry
      "a", "me", "ry", "amer", "ery"
    }

    --- Generates a unique, pronounceable filename.
    -- The random selection of phonemes is seeded from the current timestamp.
    -- @param extension (optional) file extension without the leading dot (default: "txt")
    -- @param syllable_count (optional) number of phoneme units to combine (default: 3)
    -- @return string  A filename of the form: <phoneme-combo>.<ext>
    function generate_austrian_philosopher_filename(extension, syllable_count)
      extension      = extension or "txt"
      syllable_count = syllable_count or 3

      -- Safety: ensure we have at least 2 syllables and a sensible upper bound
      if syllable_count < 2 then syllable_count = 2 end
      if syllable_count > 6 then syllable_count = 6 end

      -- Seed the PRNG from the current timestamp for this generation
      math.randomseed(os.time())

      local parts = {}
      for i = 1, syllable_count do
        local idx = math.random(1, #PHONEMES)
        parts[i] = PHONEMES[idx]
      end

      -- Combine into a readable base name (hyphenated for clarity)
      local base = table.concat(parts, "-")

      return string.format("%s.%s", base, extension)
    end

    -- Example usage:
    -- print(generate_austrian_philosopher_filename())
    -- → e.g. "stein-neu-ber.txt"
    --
    -- print(generate_austrian_philosopher_filename("log", 4))
    -- → e.g. "fey-wit-pop-rath.log"

PAX

https://www.ikea.com/de/en/cat/pax-system-19086/

Definately more fun would be the Polish version. How many people can pronounce the BYDGOSZCZ sofa, the PRZEMYSŁAW bookcase and the PSZCZOŁA soft toy?

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 Brimnes?

Wife: >.<

I love the JERKER desk that I bought 26 years ago, so I assume this rule must be younger than that.

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.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/nattbad-bluetooth-speaker-yello...

If that's true, I wonder how many years it will take to use up the remaining unused Swedish words.

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)

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!

https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/fraeck-mirror-stainless-steel-3...

You have to change letters (e.g. å is not a with an accent. It's a different letter) and read it like you don't know the language.

(The dialogue goes, "Somewhere deep inside Ikea HQ: How shall we name the lamp?" "GNVÖERK.")

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.

Also, maybe semi-relevant: I made a small guessing game about the IKEA product catalogue in case someone wants to be lightly entertainment for two minutes [1].

[1] https://deriese.net/ikeaguesser.html?s=hn

Was very surprised to find things like “bookshelves are all men’s names”, “all names must have ä, å, or ö”, etc.

Complete coincidence that this is #2 today. Had to check that ’NaOH’ wasn’t one of my coworkers

Yes, but why prefer these letters?

I don’t know Swedish. Is it because these diacritics make the names seem more exotic?

I always thought it's just a natural consequence of using Swedish language, turns out it's on purpose!

Pretty much like when as a kid I learned enough of English to realize all those songs around actually have lyrics, pretty dumb sometimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4si8w8WMFc

(Rob Paravonian - Particle Board) - of Dr. Demento, etc., fame.

Any speakers of either language able to confirm or deny?

So when IKEA had Hoven sale - Doprodej Hoven (Excrements sale), people were amused

https://www.lidovky.cz/byznys/ikea-narazila-s-nazvy-vyrobku-...

so much for "Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages"

Translation:

  Somewhere inside IKEA.
  - How do we call the table lamp?
  - GNVOERK

Hey Donna [1]...

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

And also numbers I assume. Does it mean something like “endless stream of numbers”?

I’m very surprised that they have 2000-3000 new products every year. Checking every name against every language of countries they operate in to avoid “bad” names must be a pain.

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?

If I remember correctly, they had a desk named "JERKER" in early 2000s.

That's sexist. Saying women don't read books? /s