IKEA Created a List of Baby Names Based on Its Products
Your shelf’s name is Kallax, while your bed’s name is Malm, but soon, your child’s name might be any one of Poäng, Rens, or Frakta.
IKEA Norway has created a name bank with hundreds of suggestions to guide parents in naming their children. The Swedish retailer explained: “Finding the name of a child can be both difficult and fun. We at IKEA have given names to products for more than 70 years. So, if you are completely stuck, or just want some inspiration — here you will find over 800 boy names and girl names.”
The online library is arranged in alphabetical order, and includes Norwegian characters such as å, æ, and ø. The list doesn’t have the name of the company’s bestselling bookcase (though that hasn’t stopped American parents from giving some 408,000 kids the name Billy), but it does include names that date as far back as the 1950s, such as Inga, Malina, and Ylva.
The idea isn’t as strange as you think. IKEA takes its names from traditional children’s names, as well as the names of occupations, flowers and plants, and places. For instance, the Hemnes dresser was named after a municipality in Norway. So, if you do take up IKEA’s offer, you’re actually just naming your kid after a piece of furniture that’s named after something else, making it not so different from people with names like Rose, Paris, or River.
According to IKEA, the concept seeks to help a country experiencing a COVID baby boom. “In Norway, almost 3,000 more children were born in 2021 than the year before, which is an increase of over 5 percent, and it presents challenges in finding unique names.”
What do you think? Will you be naming your child after your favorite curtain or shelf?