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.
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.
If you’d like another data point, I’m also Swedish, and if I saw a bedspread/överkast with an Indian name in an otherwise Swedish, ”punny” context, I would 100% think ”oh, because of the caste system”. I find it very unlikely that they would’ve gone for this name without making the connection.
The bit connecting Indira Gandhi to a high/”over” caste is a bit more tenuous to me, I’d just have thought the idea was as simple as caste -> India -> Indian name (Indira), but it’s certainly possible.
I mean, obviously possible but I suspect that the clumsy translation adds a lot of obtuseness to it. In Swedish it looks straightforward enough that you only need to squint just for a moment when you see "överkast" and "Indira" together and then you get that familiar feeling of "How could I ever miss that?".
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.
> 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.
If you didn't find out about the meaning behing the naming: Småland (which also happens to be the county I'm from) can be directly translated to Small Land. So a land for the smalls, and the tradition of puns continue.
IKEA also originates from Småland, but not sure that matters in this case.
OT - I've heard of Småland! When I was growing up we had a wonderful dog whose breed no one seemed to be able to positively identify. Vets suspected all kinds of possible mixes, until my sister saw a picture of a Småland hound (Smålandsstövare) which was a perfect match. Of course we could never be sure, but looking at pictures of them now I see my family's dog.
>Man am I tired of corporate April fools. It's lame and literally never ends.
In general I'd agree with you, as they're usually blatant PR attempts instead of actual pranks, but some of the comments on that Facebook link are glorious.
That was the scene where Salander was furnishing her apartment if I remember correctly. The apartment was presented through her very technical viewpoint and IKEA catalog.
But a couple of chapters later there is a scene when Blomkvist visits the place and the description through his POV is totally different. It shows how different these two perceive the world.
I had to check this to see if there's any truth to it, and unfortunately it seems like a fib.
> Beds, hall furniture and wardrobes are named after town and cities in Norway such as Asker, Ulsberg and Klubbo. The rugs at IKEA are named after places in Denmark, so expect to see names like Hellum, Elverdam and Nysted. Finland rounds out the Scandinavian neighbors with having dining tables and chairs named after places like Pello, Bredskär and Harola.
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.
The official "keeper of place names" in Sweden is Lantmäteriet, the Swedish geodetic survey. Unfortunately, the search feature at minkarta.lantmateriet.se seems to be down at the moment. However, OpenStreetMap lists at least five islands or islets named "Bjurön", several neighbourhoods, villages and such named Billsta, two farms named Biby, a village named Bertby in (largely Sweish-speaking) Österbotten in Finland, several villages and farms named Bergsbo, etc. My guess would be that nearly all of those names that are plausible Swedish place names actually exist somewhere.
On a slightly different topic, it sucks that Ikea seems to delete the information about discontinued products. They really should keep it online (with manuals, etc).
“Drömminge” is most likely a reference to a place outside of Värnamo in Småland [1]. As a native speaker (although not a linguist), my guess is that the name is derived from “Dröm” (dream), conjugated into “Drömma” (to dream), and then into “Drömminge” which with the “-inge” suffix turns it into a place name: “Place of dreaming”.
Google Translate, when encountering a word it does not know, will just pick something that it vaguely sounds like, or sometimes, make up an entirely new nonsense word.
Do not, under any circumstances, trust Google Translate to give you a reasonable answer.
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).
Well, isn't it interesting how we all have had different experiences.
I'm also from Sweden and I have never ever heard "aina" used as a slang word, much less for the police. I believe you, but, as for "more well-known", I will go with "Doubt" on that one.
But I've heard of the name and am surprised that there are people who haven't. I'm pretty sure it's a Finnish name (but cf. Anna, Anya, etc..). You sometimes see it spelled "Ajna", which probably is a Swedification.
Aina is indeed a name, although I don't know how "Swedish" it is. Two famous Ainas are Aina Erlander (Wife of Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander) and Aina Berg (Famous swimmer), but the name is popular outside of Sweden as well.
But I do agree that probably today "Aina" is more familiar to people (born after the 90s at least) as a nickname for the police. First times I came across it I think was from Swedish gangsta rap songs, where the phrase "Aina, La hora" seems to be a popular phrase, something that I think would be translated to "The cops, The whores" or something like that.
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....
I want to second that all of the above is nonsense, except that äppelkaka means apple cake and Jerker is, in fact, a desk from IKEA. Neither of these names are meant to have any vulgar connotations at all, and if they do it’s not from a Swedish perspective (I can see an English speaker giggling about Jerker, sure).
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.
Given the tutorials on Rubik's cube on the website, I guess it's indeed run by Swedish speedcuber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Petrus. He's Swedish, but he may out of practice since he's been living abroad for at least 25 years.
I looked briefly at the list, and didn't see anything that stood out, btw. Native Swedish speaker here.
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...