Have you ever thought about how "Bluetooth" got its name or what the logo means? The answer is fascinating.
The Bluetooth website explains the name dates back to more than a millennia to King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson who ruled as kind of Denmark in the year 958. King Harald "Bluetooth" was well known for two things:
- Uniting Denmark and Norway in 958
- His dead tooth, which was a dark blue/grey color and earned him the nickname "Bluetooth"
According to the Bluetooth website, Bluetooth was only supposed to be a placeholder name.
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.”
The logo has a special meaning too. According to the Bluetooth website:
The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), Harald’s initials.