WHÄTISIT?

A look at IKEA product names (from the Australian site)
and what - if anything - they mean.

Inspired by lar5.com/ikea

Bugger. Ok, so it looks like IKEA Australia has just added a whole new bunch of products after I grabbed all the data (and may have dropped some old ones) but I can't be arsed going through it all again and getting translations, locations etc, so some of the links and names are out of date already. I also wanted to look at 'name to price' and 'name to size' relationships, but didn't get around ot it...

fun facts.

IKEA was founded in in Agunnaryd, Sweden, by Ingvar Kamprad when he was 17. Also, turns out he was apparently a bit of a NAZI.

1.

The name IKEA is a rather unimaginative acronym: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. It's his name + the name of the farm he grew up on (Elmtaryd) + the village it was in (Agunnaryd).

2.

There's a loose naming convention for IKEA products. e.g. desks, chairs & cabinets are often men's names, cushions, fabrics, & curtains are women's names (ok, so slightly sexist) More here.

3.

related to point 3, IKEA apparently uses its names as a proxy war with the Danes. e.g. products with Danish places are usually rugs and toilet bowls (Australia only has 1 that I can see, the MOLGER furniture series, which seems fairly benign)

4.

In Australia there's currently - different product names*, and all but ~12% are actual Swedish words. The longest is allemansrätten and the shortest are arv & len. Average length is - letters and almost 1 in 5 start with an 'S'.* Most names refer to a series of products. eg. the aläng series has 3 products as part of it.

5.

Not really related, but I just want to have another whinge about how IKEA went from using Futura (a lovely font) to Verdana (a shitty font designed by Microsoft SPECIFICALLY FOR USE AT SMALL SIZES ON LOW RES SCREENS). See the difference here and weep into your jordrök.

6.

Products.

Due to rounding, some percentages may not match

  1. Words** (nouns, verbs, adjectives)

    -

  2. Places

    -

  3. Other

    -

  4. Names

    -

-

Words**

-

nouns

    -

    adjs.

      -

      verbs

        -

        Places

        -

        towns

          -

          islands

            -

            lakes

              -

              other places

                -

                Names

                -

                girls

                  -

                  boys

                    -

                    Other

                    -

                    unknown

                      -

                      miscellaneous

                        - of IKEA product names are places.

                        Many of the towns below are by a lake (though Sweden does have 97,500 lakes, so you're never that far from one...)

                        1. Towns
                        2. Islands
                        3. Lakes
                        4. Other
                        5. Birthplace of IKEA

                        © Mapbox © OpenStreetMap & made with leafletjs.com.

                        What are the non-English letters?

                        The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters, with 3 extra vowels: Å, Ä, and Ö. (they occur at the end of the alphabet but IKEA Australia treats them as subsets of 'A' and 'O').

                        Åå

                        pronounced 'or'.

                        The mark above is called the ring (or overring).

                        Ää

                        pronounced 'air'.

                        The mark above is called the umlaut (or diaeresis).

                        Öö

                        pronounced 'er'.

                        The mark above is called the umlaut (or diaeresis).

                        What letter do they start with?

                        product names starting with 'S' are twice as common as the second most popular letter ('V')

                          Top pairs of letters.

                            Top triplets.

                              How long are the names?

                              Average length is - letters

                                Coming Soon:

                                The relationships between product name & product type.

                                All - IKEA names used in Australia.

                                Click column headers to sort

                                Name Type Meaning Length Country (If a place and not in Sweden)

                                Products via here, translations via here, here, and here, locations via here and here
                                ** there must be a better name for this, yeah?