The “I” in IKEA stands for “Ingvar” , which is the first name of the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad.

What IKEA Stands For

The name IKEA is an acronym made from four parts:

  • I = Ingvar (founder’s first name)
  • K = Kamprad (founder’s surname)
  • E = Elmtaryd (the family farm where he grew up)
  • A = Agunnaryd (his home village in Sweden)

So when asking “what does the I in IKEA stand for” , the quick answer is: it stands for Ingvar , as in Ingvar Kamprad.

A teenage Ingvar Kamprad used his own initials plus the farm and village names to create a short, memorable brand name that would work internationally.

TL;DR: The “I” in IKEA is for Ingvar , the founder’s first name.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.