The Bluetooth is a standard protocol for short-range information exchange developed in 1996 by a consortium of companies that included Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, IBM and Toshiba. Many of us use it every day to listen to music with earphones or wireless speakers, manage home voice assistants or send and receive information from other electronic devices. The first name and the logo of this protocol are very famous even to those less accustomed to technology, but perhaps not everyone knows their origin. Surprisingly, the name Bluetooth (literally “Blue Tooth” or “Blue Tooth”) was the nickname of an ancient Viking king, Harold Gormsson I of Denmarkwhile the symbol is la combination of the runes of the initials of his name.
Why Bluetooth is called that: origins and meaning of the name
Among the members of the consortium that developed Bluetooth technology were Jim Kardach And Sven Mattisontwo engineers with a shared passion for historical literature. Just around that time, Mattison had read the book Viking ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson, which tells of the exploits of the Danish warriors under the reign of Haraldr Blåtand Gormssonthat is, the king Harold THE who led the kingdom of Denmark from 957 to the 986and which he had the merit of unite the kingdom which was previously particularly fragmented.
Aroldo was called “Blue Tooth” or “Blue Tooth” (Bluetooth in English) for reasons that are not certain. One hypothesis is that he may have had a sick tooth which took on a bluish color; according to others the nickname derives from passion of the king for i blueberries; a final theory suggests that Harold and his army used color your teeth blue before facing battles.
It was Kardach who proposed this name for the data exchange protocol. Just like King Harold, in fact, the standard aimed to unite different kingdoms, or the various brands that dominated the IT sector in those years. The name “Bluetooth” was initially proposed as a temporary solution but, given the very rapid popularity reached the standard, it was maintained over the years to come.
Where does the Bluetooth logo come from and what does it represent? Scandinavian runes
The Bluetooth logo was born along the lines of the name. It is in fact made up of composition of the two Scandinavian runes which constitute the initials of the name of Harold I, Harald Blåtand, i.e. HB. The two runes of which the Bluetooth logo is composed are in fact ᚼ (Haglaz“hail”), corresponding to our letter “h”, e ᛒ (Berkanan, “birch”), corresponding to our letter “'b”). The two symbols belong to the Recent Futhark, a runic alphabet of 16 characters in use during IX century.
