عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Ikea Norway Offers Help with Baby Names after COVID-19 Boom

The company's logo is seen at an Ikea store in Nice, France, May 11, 2022. (Reuters)
The company's logo is seen at an Ikea store in Nice, France, May 11, 2022. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Ikea Norway Offers Help with Baby Names after COVID-19 Boom

The company's logo is seen at an Ikea store in Nice, France, May 11, 2022. (Reuters)
The company's logo is seen at an Ikea store in Nice, France, May 11, 2022. (Reuters)

Have you thought about Malm, Kivik or Trotten?

Swedish retailer Ikea is known for the distinctive names of its flat-pack home products. The company's Norway branch wants to use the brand's experience to help parents browsing the baby-naming department.

Ikea Norway has built "a name bank" with more than 800 listings available on its website. The names are drawn from ones Ikea has given to its furniture instead of product numbers since 1948.

"After all these years, (Ikea) has built up a large ‘catalog’ to pick from," Ikea Norway said in a statement.

Ikea names its products after Swedish towns, lakes and other geographical features, but also uses names that have traditionally gone to people.

The branch noted that while retailers saw "both a shortage of raw materials and challenges with delivery times" during the COVID-19 pandemic, "there is at least no shortage of children" in Norway.

The Scandinavian country registered the births of 56,060 babies last year, or 3,081 more than in 2020.

The increase creates "a challenge in finding unique names," Ikea Norway said.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Customers at this Starbucks Can Sip Coffee and Observe a Quiet North Korean Village

Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
TT
TT

Customers at this Starbucks Can Sip Coffee and Observe a Quiet North Korean Village

Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Coffee drinkers can sip their beverages and view a quiet North Korean mountain village from a new Starbucks at a South Korean border observatory.
Customers have to pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark, which is less than a mile from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung county, The Associated Press said.
The tables and windows face North Korea at the Starbucks, where about 40 people, a few of them foreigners, came to the opening Friday.
The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination and said the shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”
The observatory is the key facility at Aegibong park, which was built on a hill that was a fierce battle site during the 1950-53 Korean War. The park also has gardens, exhibition and conference halls and a war memorial dedicated to fallen marines.
Gimpo and other South Korean border cities like Paju have been trying to develop their border sites as tourist assets, even as tensions grow between the war-divided Koreas.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been trying to raise pressure on South Korea and threatening to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked. North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying trash-laden balloons into the South and disrupting GPS signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.
Kaephung county is believed to be one of the possible sites from where North Korea has launched thousands of balloons over several months.
South Korea’s military said Friday that the North flew dozens more balloons overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province.