People use it everyday – but many have no idea how Bluetooth got its unusual name.
The wireless technology allows devices to connect and exchange date over a short distance – and is commonly used for pairing phones with watches and phones with speakers or headphones.
Invented by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson, Bluetooth has been around since 1994 – but some users are only just stopping to wonder what it’s unusual name actually means. One Reddit user asked: “What is Bluetooth and why it is called Bluetooth?”
According to the Bluetooth brand, the name dates back more than a millennia to King Harald ‘Bluetooth Gormsson who was well known for uniting Denmark and Norway in 958, and his death tooth, which was a dark blue colour and earned him the nickname Bluetooth.
A statement reads: “In 1996, three industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia, met to plan the standardization of this short-range radio technology to support connectivity and collaboration between different products and industries. During this meeting, Jim Kardach from Intel suggested Bluetooth as a temporary code name.
“Kardach was later quoted as saying, ‘King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link’. Bluetooth was only intended as a placeholder until marketing could come up with something really cool.
“Later, when it came time to select a serious name, Bluetooth was to be replaced with either RadioWire or PAN (Personal Area Networking). PAN was the front runner, but an exhaustive search discovered it already had tens of thousands of hits throughout the internet.
“A full trademark search on RadioWire couldn’t be completed in time for launch, making Bluetooth the only choice. The name caught on fast and before it could be changed, it spread throughout the industry, becoming synonymous with short-range wireless technology.”
But King Harald isn’t only the inspiration for its name as his initials were used in the logo too. The statement continues: “The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), Harald’s initials.”
Commenting on this revelation, one Reddit user said: “I love that it’s named after a guy. That’s so stupid and bad sci-fiesque that it’s charming.” Another user added: “It was originally intended to be a placeholder name while the project was in development, but it stuck. It’s named after the 10th centaury Danish King Harald Bluetooth.”
