The term Bluetooth has a legacy of over 1,000 years
Topics: News, Technology
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Westend61 GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo/Enrique Diamantini / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: News, Technology
While most of us think of Bluetooth as a type of wireless technology - used to conveniently share data with different devices - you may have wondered why it's actually called 'Bluetooth'?
After all, the name doesn't seem to bear any meaning to what Bluetooth is, or what it actually does either.
Well, the reason behind its name might blow your mind. In fact, the phrase actually goes back over one thousand years.
You can find out where it originated from below:
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Bluetooth was first developed back in the 1990s, by three industry leaders - Intel, Ericsson and Nokia.
While the name was only initially used as a placeholder, 'until marketing could come up with something really cool' it stuck, and has remained to this day.
At the time, cables were used to share or transfer data between devices. There was also infrared - but this was used less, as it involved facing two devices directly together.
But how did the name come about?
Well, over on the Bluetooth website, they explain that the name comes from King Harold 'Bluetooth' Gormsson.
"The name dates back more than a millennia to King Harald 'Bluetooth' Gormsson who was well known for two things: Uniting Denmark and Norway in 958," it reads. "[And] his dead tooth, which was a dark blue/grey colour, and earned him the nickname Bluetooth."
In a video by LX News, on TikTok, one man explains the name's origins further.
"The name originated over one thousand years ago, with King Harold 'Bluetooth' Gormsson," he says.
"He had a dead tooth which makes it a kind of greyish blue colour. So they called him Bluetooth."
It was actually Jim Kardach from Intel who suggested using Bluetooth's name as a 'codename'.
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.”
Bluetooth added: "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."
The Bluetooth logo itself is a combination of two symbols, merging the Younger Futhark runes, Hagall - ᚼ - and Bjarkan - ᛒ - which were Harald’s initials.
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