How Do You Pronounce IKEA in Swedish | Tribute to Ingvar Kamprad

Last week I met a Swedish speaker at an international conference.

I told him that his presentation slides were visually impressive.

Unlike others with boring PowerPoint templates, his slides were different.

Each slide was a full photograph with a few bold font words on it.

It reminded me of the clean designs by IKEA, which is also Swedish.

So I asked him “How do you actually pronounce IKEA in your language?”

“In Singapore, some say AI-KAY-ER, and some say EE-KEE-AH.”

He says that IKEA is not a word but should be said as EE-KEE-AH.

Why? The founder used his initials Ingvar where the “I” is read as “EE”.

“K” is from Kamprad, his second name. His name is Ingvar Kamprad.

“E” and “A” is from the farm and village where the founder grew up.

“E” is from Elmtaryd, the farm, and “A” is from Agunnaryd, the village.

So, from now on, I am going to pronounce IKEA as EE-KEE-AH.

Update:

• I found this infographic on how famous companies got their names…
  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/186688347030811057/

More information:

• Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA https://sweden.se/business/ingvar-kamprad-founder-of-ikea/