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Revealed: What IKEA’s weird product names actually mean - from Malm to Billy
From Ektorp to Malm, from Poang to Billy, the mysterious language of IKEA is part of the charm of the international furniture chain – almost as much as the meatballs.
But most shoppers simply think the names are gibberish – not so, IKEA designer Jon Karlsson explained this week.
In fact, the company actually employs product namers – and assigns names from a database of Swedish words, with strict rules in each product category, according to Quartz.
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Bookcases are named after professions and boy’s names, while outdoor furniture is named after Scandinavian islands, for instance.
Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture are all named after Swedish place names – while dining tables and chairs are named after Finnish ones.
Kitchenware tends to be grammatical terms and names. Chairs and desks have men’s names, while fabrics and curtains have women’s names.
Lighting uses terms from music, science and nautical terms – while children’s items are named after mammals,, birds and adjectives.
So, for instance, the famous Billy bookcase is a boy’s name – actually named after IKEA employee Billy Likjedhal. And Malm is named after a village in Norway (see below).
If you’re really interested, IKEA fan Lars Petrus maintains an IKEA dictionary here – although it’s not complete.
The system came about because IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was dyslexic, and struggled to remember numeric item codes.
The same names are used everywhere in the world.
