The Proper Way To Pronounce IKEA

When a company decides to use a foreign or made up name for their brand they know people are going to mispronounce the name, and they're usually okay with that.

Mispronunciation leads to discussion about the brand which is a form of free advertisement, and as long as consumers can find the store and spend their money nothing else matters.

IKEA became the largest furniture retailer in the world even though nobody knew how to properly pronounce their name, which the company knew and encouraged until setting the record straight a few years ago with this Vine video.

The proper pronunciation isn't eye-key-ah, even though IKEA had a billboard with an eyeball, a key and a person saying "ah", it's actually pronounced ee-KAY-uh. Oh well, too late to change it now!

-Via Esquire


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yeah, eye-key-ah seems like just an Americanized version of the name. Most people have no issue with these types of adaptations. Being of Polish decent, I don't worry about people saying "PER-oh-ghee".. unless you are Polish.. then you have no excuse for pronouncing it this way :)
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That's true (and don't get me started on "NEW-kyoo-ler"), but I think at some point you risk becoming a bit twee and precious if you pronounce everything exactly as the natives do. I'll bet it's common for residents in many countries to pronounce other countries differently than that other country's natives do. For example, most people in the US don't pronounce our southern neighbor "MEH-hee-koh".
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I'm always bothered when certain countries are pronounced badly. For instance, why do we refer to the nations of "Eye-RAN" and "Eye-RAK"? The "I" has a softer sound, more like "ee-RAHN" and "ee-RAHK". To hear it spoken by our politicians grates on me, like hearing about "nucular" weapons.
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You wrote: "it's actually pronounced ee-KAY-uh." That's not the pronunciation I heard in that Vine video. Sounds more like "ee-KEE-uh".

But glad to know that they say "eye-KEE-uh" is okay with them, as well. I'm so set in my ways, I doubt I could ever start saying it another way now. ;-)
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