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Posted by NaOH 18 hours ago

How does IKEA come up with names for its products?(www.ikea.com)
368 points | 256 commentspage 2
jannyfer 17 hours ago|
The $50USD Bluetooth speakers "NATTBAD" gave us a good chuckle.

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

novoreorx 9 hours ago||
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?

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

asjo 6 hours ago||
The Swedish Academy <https://www.svenskaakademien.se/en> has a word list (SAOL <https://svenska.se/om/om-ordbockerna/#saol>) of around 127,600 current Swedish words, and a Swedish dictionary including historic words from 1521 until today (SAOB <https://www.saob.se/>) of around 500,000 words.

The dictionary was started in 1898 and completed in 2023(!)

crm9125 9 hours ago||
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zeroq 17 hours ago||
> Did you know that we name around 2,000-3,000 new products every year?

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)

zamadatix 13 hours ago||
When [3] contains half as many as [2] it should be a good sign to take pause to consider both could be faaaar from exhaustive. [1] is just a link to a page of links, it doesn't really say anything about how many total named products there are. Meanwhile, https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ranjithpanicker/ikea-global-... claims "34,932 unique global products" and Ikea Canada alone claims ~12k products https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/newsroom/corporate-news/ikea-cana...

Why should we treat a minor wiki page and some dude's personal site (who disagree with each other on totals) as authoritative proof Ikea is wrong about it's own catalog? Especially when it's not hard to find 1st/3rd party sources claiming an order of magnitude more products. Keep in mind, some things will also fall off the catalog over time.

mbreese 11 hours ago||
I’m going to guess that a good chunk of products are named but never released. I’d love to know what products IKEA develops but decides to not release.
bpacholek 3 hours ago||
It is funny how those name often sound differently than intended in other languages while still remaining memetic. My best example is "Knorrig" as it sounds like a fun name for a pig since "knur" is a male ping in Polish.
martin- 3 hours ago|
That fits, because "knorr" is Swedish for a pig's tail!
smohnot 6 hours ago||
Chiming in for the Ikea fans - you should definitely listen to the Acquired episode about it! It was fantastic and covered this and other fun facts https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/ikea
arjvik 12 hours ago||
> Sofas → Swedish place names

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!

Loic 16 hours ago||
About 25 years ago, one rule was that everything related to the toilets was in Danish. He said it was the Swedish Danish rivalry.
whirlwin 2 hours ago||
IKEA is the new "fast fashion", but for furniture.

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.

sdoering 2 hours ago||
We’ve had IKEA furniture for over 15 years, sometimes storing it in the attic for a few years after disassembling it, then assembling it again. We’ve also kept the main bodies of our living room furniture while replacing the doors. We sold the old doors on eBay, and other people reused them.

I also inherited some “regular” living room furniture after my mom passed away. It cost about four times as much as IKEA’s higher-end lines. After moving it from my mom’s place to my office, I can already see it falling apart after just three years (total lifetime as my mom only had it for two). The quality is so shite that I honestly wish my mom had bought IKEA.

In the future, I’ll either buy custom pieces from a furniture maker or choose IKEA's higher end lines for longevity and reusability.

martin- 2 hours ago|||
I have no experience with newer IKEA furniture, as my old IKEA furniture seems to last forever.
yourusername 1 hour ago||
They make stuff at all price points. The basic stuff is sturdy paper meant to last a few years, something like Ivar is solid (ish) wood and will outlive you.
vlyan 1 hour ago|||
we miss it dearly in Russia. most (reasonably-priced) furniture we had before Ikea was worse, and what we have now is worse still.

high quality furniture loses most of its value the moment it becomes preowned, so it only makes sense to buy if you are absolutely certain you aren't going to move anytime soon, which is not realistic for most people. Ikea is just good enough.

arexxbifs 2 hours ago|||
Even the stuff they've traditionally been good at?

Funny thing is, I haven't bought much furniture for ages since my old IKEA stuff has lasted for several decades and is still going strong. Their major kitchen appliances are crap, though.

sofixa 2 hours ago||
> 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

I had a LACK table (9.99 euros at time of acquisition) last for 10 years before a move forced me to give it away. I also have a few random things from them (wooden cutting board, grater, I think a bookshelf) and everything is pretty OK, even the cheap stuff.

comboy 2 hours ago||
They are so hard to pronounce and remember to me that might as well be UUIDs
mig39 17 hours ago|
The Fräck mirror was named after the commonly used faux swear word on Battlestar Galactica, where one of the characters used a similar mirror:

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

wowczarek 16 hours ago||
And then, unbeknownst to what the Sci-Fi future might bring, an Italian home appliance manufacturer names themselves SMEG.
reddalo 9 minutes ago||
SMEG stands for Emilian (the Italian region) Metallurgical Enamels in Guastalla (a town close to Reggio Emilia).
pndy 16 hours ago||
You may say that "There's too much confusion", ha!
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