Glad you asked! Turns out that IKEA really does have a formula for product naming.
- We use Swedish names for our products.
The product names reflect our Swedish identity, Småland’s heritage and our values. They make IKEA unique and contribute to a sense of playfulness. The names are real words and often inspired by Swedish places, nature, emotions or everyday expressions – and follow a clear categorization system. For instance:
Sofas → Swedish place names
Bookshelves → men’s names
Children’s products → animals and nature
To be used as a product name, it must:
- be a real word
- contain between 4 and 12 letters
- preferably contain the letters Å, Ä or Ö
- feels good to say
- Never be trademarked or be a surname
Every possible product name is carefully checked to avoid undesirable meanings in other languages, political or religious affiliations and fit into our global profile.
- For everything else, we use descriptive names in the local language of the country in which we operate.
This applies, for example, to services, functions and communication, which must be clear and easy to understand for all customers, regardless of market.
An exception to these two rules are some carefully selected Swedish words (Hello, bye, welcome, welcome back and coffee), they are used to express aspects of the culture and traditions we have at IKEA.
