Bluetooth

In the late 1990s, rival companies including Intel, Ericsson and Nokia were trying to agree on one short-range radio standard, so phones, computers and headsets could talk to each other without cables. They needed a name for the project while they worked.

Intel engineer Jim Kardach had been reading about the Vikings, partly after a conversation with Ericsson’s Sven Mattisson. He learned about Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, a Danish king of the 900s remembered for uniting Denmark and bringing parts of Norway under his rule. Uniting quarrelling groups was exactly what the project was trying to do, so Kardach proposed “Bluetooth” as a codename.

It was meant to be temporary. The serious candidates were “PAN”, for Personal Area Networking, and “RadioWire”. PAN was so common a word that it turned up everywhere, which made it hard to protect as a brand. The trademark search for RadioWire could not be finished before launch. Bluetooth was the only name left standing.

The logo kept the joke going. It joins two runes from the Younger Futhark alphabet, the letters for H and B: Harald Bluetooth’s initials.

Historians are not certain where the king’s nickname came from. One popular idea is a dead tooth that looked dark or blue.

Look closer: The next time you pair headphones, you are invoking a Viking king who died more than a thousand years ago.