Bluetooth technology was named after a Viking king by the name of Harald Bluetooth who died over 1,000 years ago.

Bluetooth technology was named after a Viking king by the name of Harald Bluetooth who died over 1,000 years ago–world history and facts


He unified factions of Denmark with those in Norway much like how technology we use today unifies different electronic devices. The Bluetooth logo consists of his initials, (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ).

As for how he got his nickname in the first place 

The name "Bluetooth" was proposed in 1997 by Jim Kardach of Intel, one of the founders of the Bluetooth SIG. 

The name was inspired by a conversation with Sven Mattisson who related Scandinavian history through tales from Frans G. Bengtsson's The Long Ships, a historical novel about Vikings and the 10th-century Danish king Harald Bluetooth. 

Upon discovering a picture of the runestone of Harald Bluetooth in the book A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones, Jim proposed Bluetooth as the codename for the short-range wireless program which is now called Bluetooth.

According to Bluetooth's official website,

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.

Bluetooth is the Anglicised version of the Scandinavian Blåtand/Blåtann (or in Old Norse blátǫnn). It was the epithet of King Harald Bluetooth, who united the disparate Danish tribes into a single kingdom; Kardach chose the name to imply that Bluetooth similarly unites communication protocols.

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