Bluetooth technology named after Viking King Harald Gormsson

The name Bluetooth originates from the 10th-century Viking king Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormsson, who famously unified Denmark and Norway. In 1996, engineers from Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia met to standardize short-range radio technology to connect disparate computing and mobile industries.

Jim Kardach of Intel proposed ‘Bluetooth’ as a temporary code name. The analogy was that just as Harald unified Scandinavia, the new technology would unify the tech world through a single wireless standard. While technical names like RadioWire or PAN (Personal Area Networking) were considered, PAN was already widely used on the internet, and RadioWire faced trademarking delays. Consequently, the temporary code name became the permanent industry standard.