Surprising reason behind why IKEA items are given really strange names

If you take a trip to the world's largest furniture retailer and premier hide and seek location you might end up wondering exactly what it is you're buying.

You don't want to get your LOMMARP and your LOMVIKEN mixed up as one's a cabinet and the other is a picture frame.

Mistake a DRÖMSLOTT for DRÖNJÖNS and you'll be mixing up IKEA's bedding selections with their letter trays and desk organiser range. The names are both confusing and yet somehow fitting.

In fact, one of my compatriots here at LADbible Towers was in IKEA recently and was wondering where all of the product names had come from.

There's something quite important in a name, and it turns out there's a very good reason why the IKEA product range has such a distinct set of names.

IKEA, in all its blue and yellow glory. (Francis Dean/Corbis via Getty Images)

As it turns out, IKEA founder named the business by using his 'IK' initials, then adding an 'E' and 'A' on for Elmtaryd, the farm he grew up on and Agunnaryd, the village it was near.

That's how the company got its name, but as for the varied range of items and their names it's because he was dyslexic and wanted an easier way to understand his product range.

The name of items in IKEA may look confusing but there's a sort of theme to some of the products.

Many of them come from Swedish place names, so if you're ever buying a KLÄPPE you can know the same comes from a tiny little hamlet in Sweden.

Beds and wardrobes are named after places in Norway, while rugs are named after Danish locations.

This one's a bookcase called BILLY. (Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In fact, there are those who've made it their mission to try and understand the true meaning behind pretty much all of the IKEA names and have identified where so many of them get their name on a website.

There are some names which are exceptions to the rule, and others which they've not been able to figure out any meaning behind so it seems as though some IKEA items have been given a made up moniker.

While the names themselves might sound odd to our ears, they'd have made sense to Ingvar Kamprad, as would the themes behind each name.

So now you know something, which is half the battle, and the other half is not starting a massive game of hide and seek in there because 3,000 people tried to do that in Glasgow and the police were called.