from Hacker News

The Curious Case of IKEA Vocabulary

by MihikaBasu on 9/23/21, 8:47 AM with 70 comments

• by 45ure on 9/25/21, 10:08 AM

  IKEA product names fall into a few main groups.

  Beyond these groups, there is a curious taxonomy of product names.

  ● Bathroom items: Names of Swedish lakes and bodies of water

  ● Linens: Flowers and plants

  ● Bedroom and Living Room Furniture: Norwegian places

  ● Bookcases: Professions and Scandinavian boy’s names

  ● Bowls and Vases: Swedish place names, adjectives, spices, herbs, fruits, and berries

  ● Boxes, Pictures, and Wall Decorations: Swedish slang expressions and Swedish place names

  ● Children’s Products: Mammals, birds, adjectives

  ● Desks and Chairs: Scandinavian boy’s names

  ● Fabrics and Curtains: Scandinavian girl’s names

  ● Outdoor Furniture: Scandinavian islands

  ● Kitchen Accessories: Fish, mushrooms and adjectives

  ● Lighting: Units of measurement, seasons, months, days, shipping and nautical terms, Swedish place names

  ● Rugs: Danish place names

  ● Sofas, Chairs and Dining Sets: Swedish place names

  There was also some brouhaha a while ago, about product names for floor coverings, like doormats used as placeholders for an 'in-joke'.

  >Academics in Denmark have accused Ikea of “Swedish imperialism” because it names cheaper products such as doormats after Danish places.

  They claim that more expensive items such as chairs and beds are named after Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian towns, while cheaper items such as draught excluders have been given Danish town names.

  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/mar/08/danish...

• by msandin on 9/25/21, 5:14 AM

  They're missing an explanation for one of the more famous but subtle IKEA naming puns.

  "Indira" is at this page says an Indian name and also the name of an India-inspired IKEA bedspread. But bedspred in Swedish would be "överkast" which would translate directly as "over throw" but could also be read as "over caste". From a Swedish PoV the Indian caste system looks like a social ranking system and to Swedes one of the most famous (and thus presumably socially high ranking) Indians "just happened" to be named... Indira.

• by mmahemoff on 9/25/21, 12:42 AM

  Linkrot? This vocabulary site uses "query" parameter, while Ikea's search uses "q".

  e.g. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/products/?q=franklin

• by janci on 9/25/21, 6:46 AM

  Great list, it's a pitty it does not list what type of product it is. Also the links are broken for me due to redirection to my local language variant of the IKEA page.

  Also note product names are not the same in different countries. My favourite is electrical extension cord KOPPLA what is similar to "kopla" - past tense of verb to give electric shock.

• by tablespoon on 9/24/21, 10:29 PM

  All the "place in Småland" had me Google "ikea Småland," because I vaguely recalled it's their customer daycare, and I found this horror:

  https://www.facebook.com/IKEASingapore/posts/129956202012053...

  > We’re about to transform Småland from a playground into a ‘press-play-ground’!

  > Our studies of children's play habits reveal that today's kids prefer tablets to physical activity. So we're replacing the magical forest with a haven of sitting pods with tablets—recreating the way your kids play.

  Edit: I guess it might be an April fools' joke, though timezone differences show it as March 30 for me: https://mashable.com/article/ikea-trolls-everyone. Man am I tired of corporate April fools. It's lame and literally never ends.

• by dhosek on 9/25/21, 1:57 AM

  I remember reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thinking it was like reading an IKEA catalog thanks to all the Scandinavian names.

  And then there was a scene (in the second book, IIRC), where there literally is a listing of products from the IKEA catalog.

• by jonplackett on 9/24/21, 11:10 PM

  Someone told me the other day they name the premium stuff with Swedish names and the cheap stuff with names from the surrounding countries.

• by sqarp on 9/25/21, 5:57 AM

  A lot of the "Mystery names" on the list sounds an awful lot like made-up Swedish towns (I'm assuming that if they were real the author would have found them). E.g.:

  Bergsbo - could be a made-up town name, but it could also roughly be translated to "mountain dweller".

  Bertby - Would literally translate to Bert (Swedish boy's name) village.

  Biby - Bee village.

  Billsta - -sta is a common suffix for places in Sweden.

  Bjurön - Bjur is an old name for beaver, and the name literally translates to Beaver Island. Furthermore, bjur is (according to the Swedish National Encyclopedia) a common prefix used in village names. https://www.ne.se/uppslagsverk/encyklopedi/l%C3%A5ng/bjur.

• by stickfigure on 9/25/21, 12:56 AM

  I'm terribly disappointed that my favorite couch is missing, the Dromminge. Looks like this:

  https://offerup.com/item/detail/33576960

  I still have mine, almost 20 years later. It's currently my 4yo's bed.

  What really surprised me though is that Ikea apparently has another item called Dromminge. It's a wall lamp that looks like a balloon:

  https://www.ikeaddict.com/ikeapedia/en/Product/40330895/ca-e...

  Why on earth would they recycle the name? Did they run out of Swedish words? What does it mean?

• by DavidVoid on 9/25/21, 12:47 PM

  > AINA: Swedish girl name

  I'm Swedish and I didn't know this was an actual name. The word is more well-known here as a slang term for police (it's mainly used in immigrant-dense areas).

• by xg15 on 9/25/21, 10:01 AM

  A few years ago they had the wood treatment "Behandla". Being german, we could get the joke for once :)

  Slightly disappointed it's not on the list...

• by stragies on 9/25/21, 7:04 AM

  Like the bed called "Gutvik", which for nordic languages sounds a bit like the translation for "Good F*k". But they should have perhaps used that one for a large double bed...

  Or "Appelkaka", the Apple-Cake. "Kaka" sounds like the word for vulgar word for excrements....

  Or the Ikea "Jerker", which is a desk

• by pininja on 9/25/21, 4:54 AM

  I wonder what långfjäll means? It’s a wonderful chair and isn’t on the list.

• by surfsvammel on 9/25/21, 6:38 AM

  I looked though the list, an I don't believe it's a native Swedish speaker who has created this list. Found a couple of very strange explanations. Anyway, pretty fun project.

• by jmkd on 9/24/21, 10:30 PM

  Great analysis but a shame to see an unreadable mobile site in 2021

• by tored on 9/25/21, 9:17 AM

  IKEA should create a programming language with only Swedish keywords.