IKEA Wants You To Name Your Baby After A Table Or Cupboard Amid Birth Boom

Photo 18431510 © Tomasz Bidermann | Dreamstime.com

IKEA furniture already fills most homes, and it now wants to complete your abode by helping to assemble a name for your child too.

Forget baby name books—walk into any IKEA store and you’ll be surrounded by a catalog of names. The home product giant’s Norwegian arm has created a whole name bank, inspired by its products from 1948 and beyond, for parents-to-be who can’t settle on the right one.

Ivar, Billy, and Mikele are just a few of the 800-odd suggestions being proffered in this online library.

The concept might sound strange, but when you realize that the company draws its product monikers from real girl and boy names—in addition to natural landmarks in Sweden—an IKEA name catalog for babies isn’t all that weird. You’re simply selecting from a curated list of names that also happen to be what some IKEA products are called.

Video screenshot via IKEA Norway

As quoted by the Associated Press, IKEA admits that while the industry has been crippled by a shortage of materials and delivery issues, there’s “at least no shortage of children” in Norway. In 2021, the country registered 56,060 babies—about 3,000 more than in 2020, the news outlet reports.

With births apparently on the rise, IKEA thinks parents might be stuck on landing a unique name for their child, and hopes to give them more ideas.

[via Associated Press and IKEA, images via various sources]