IKEA is more than a store; it truly is an experience. From the enormity of the showroom to the smell of Swedish meatballs cooking in the cafeteria to trying not to get crushed by a futon in the warehouse, a trip to IKEA is nothing short of an event.
There's one thing that always sticks with people after they leave: the names of IKEA's furniture items. Surely, we all walk through the carefully decorated rooms and can't help but recite the seemingly odd names for each furniture item, whether we say it out loud or in our heads. Poang, Malm, Fintorp. These are just three of the names bestowed upon a rocking chair, bed and paper towel holder, respectively, from IKEA's catalogue.
I don't know about you, but these words don't mean anything to me. I always kind of thought these names were just randomly determined. Many have pointed out how puzzling these names are in the past. Some even think they sound like death metal bands. Is there a real meaning behind all of those names? It turns out there actually is, and the logic behind them is quite complex.
BuzzFeed recently unearthed a 2008 article that ran in The Guardian that broke down how IKEA names its products. Due to his dyslexia, IKEA's founder Ingvar Kamprad thought labeling the products after proper names would make identifying them easier, according to the article.
Here's how the naming system works. Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs are named after places in Sweden. Beds, wardrobes and hall furniture are named after Norwegian places. Carpets after Danish places, and dining tables and chairs after Finnish places. Bathroom furniture is also geographically-labeled with names coming from lakes and rivers.
Familiarity with the Swedish language comes in handy when identifying other items. Bookcases are mainly named after jobs. Kitchen stuff usually takes on grammatical terms, except for kitchen utensils, which are named after spices, herbs, fish, fruit, berries or adjectives that describe the product, such as "Skarpt," Swedish for "sharp," which is a knife. Children's furniture is named after mammals, birds and adjectives (some of the stuffed animals have "Gosig" in the name, which means "cuddly" in Swedish), which seems very fitting.
If you have some friends from Sweden or with Swedish ancestry, you may already have some familiarity with IKEA's naming system, even if you didn't know it. Chairs and desks are Swedish men's names while materials and curtains take on women's names.
Phew. I for one am glad that mystery was solved. Aren't you?
