It’s already over 20 years since Bluetooth came by, and today it is used on so many things from phones to laptops, Headphones, and even Bluetooth-enabled toothbrushes.
The thing though is this, have you ever wondered how the name Bluetooth or even its Logo came by? If no, you are not alone, just as most of us have never thought of how the name; infrared, Wi-Fi, or other stuff like that came by.
We may not be able to tell you how all those other names came by, but as it is, Bluetooth is named after a 10th-century Scandinavian king who used magic to transfer songs and pictures painted on walls to others in different parts of the world. Just joking about the magic part and the transfer part.
The name of the Scandinavian King from whose name Bluetooth is drawn from is Harald “Blåtand” Gormsson. This Viking king ruled Denmark and Norway from 958 until 985, and he was able to make so many accomplishments including uniting Denmark and Norway under his rule.
One of the most popular things about Harald Gormsson was dead tooth, which had a very dark blue/grey shade. It was because of this that he got the nickname “Blåtand”, which literally translates from Danish to “Bluetooth.”
What is the Connection between King Gormsson and Bluetooth?
in 1996, over 1,000 years later, the short-range radio technology began sprouting with Intel’s program called Biz-RF, Ericsson’s MC-Link, and Nokia’s Low Power RF. The three powerhouses realized that the best way to drive the technology forward within the industry and avoid fragmentation would be to create a single wireless standard.
Before the end of that year, representatives from each group met at the Ericsson plant in Lund, Sweden to strategize on how to get the technology moving. First things first, they decided to find a tentative name for the project which was still on the ground.
Intel representative Jim Kardash (not related to the Kardashians) suggested that the temporary name be “Bluetooth.”
“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.” That was his simple reason, as he wrote in a blog post.
When the time for a permanent name to be gotten came as the technology was nearly finalized, Bluetooth was not considered at first.
The two top contenders were RadioWire (the Intel proposal) and PAN (for Personal Area Networking, the IBM proposal).
In April we held our board meeting and voted for the official name which went to PAN in a 4-1 vote. At this point everybody started using the name PAN and we were driving towards the launch event which would occur in about four weeks.
About a week later, an emergency meeting was called. The other member companies had performed a trademark search on the word PAN and surmised that this would be a poor candidate for a trademark: an internet search produced tens of thousands of hits.
It turned out that no trademark search was done on the backup name (Radio Wire) and the only name we could go to launch with on short notice was Bluetooth!
That was how the name Bluetooth came by.
Have you ever wondered about its Logo and thought it was just a “B”?
After deciding on the name, and the need for a logo came by, it was decided that th Initials of Harald “Blåtand” would be used.
That is what you get when scientists are not poor in History.
