Snitta, Solvar, Jerrik – When you’re walking the aisles at your local Ikea, you’re likely to encounter all three words, and a ton more, but what do they mean?
All of Ikea’s product names are in Swedish in origin, but if you don’t speak the language, then you don’t realize that your Malm bedroom set actually means suburb, or that Fartyg actually refers to a ship.
Ikea’s names typically fall into a few different categories, they’re either proper Swedish words, improper Swedish words, first names, or geographical locations. Ikea fan Lars Petrus took all the names of Ikea’s products and attempted to discover what each of them meant, then used those definitions to create “The Ikea Dictionary,” a dictionary of just Ikea products with what Petrus suspects each’s name really means.
Curious what your bedroom set is really named after? You can see the whole lineup of 1362 products in Petrus’ public dictionary. And Swedish speakers, he still needs help with 130 of those names, if you’d like to lend a hand.