We’ve all used Bluetooth to wirelessly connect our devices to each other. But why do we call this technology “Bluetooth?”
We need to go back to a 10th-century Viking king named Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson. He got that name because of a dental problem: a dead tooth that turned a grayish blue. Harald was a pretty effective king. He unified a bunch of warring Scandinavian tribes under Christianity, making them all play nice.
Here’s the metaphor. In the late 90s, tech companies each had their own way to connect to external devices. An engineer at Intel named Jim Kardach was on a mission to stop this fighting by coming up with a wireless connection technology that would work for everyone. He happened to be a fan of Scandinavian history and King Bluetooth. That became the codename for the project, but it became the real name when there was a leak.
And the icon for Bluetooth tech? It is a combination of King Harald’s initials–ᚼ (Hagall) and ᛒ (Bjarkan)–in old Norse runes.
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