Bluetooth. A standard these days, with weaknesses and strengths alike. Some users use it daily, and others have to battle with it every time they turn it on, but what brings us here is not a technical problem but a historical question: Why is Bluetooth called "Bluetooth"? The answer takes us more than a thousand years into the past, to the chaotic land of Denmark, ruled by King Harald Blåtand…
The story says that development of what we know today as Bluetooth began in 1989 thanks to the efforts of Nils Rydbeck, Tord Wingren, Jaap Haartsen (already in 1993) and Sven Mattisson of Ericsson Mobile. Twelve years later, that same company launched the T39m, the first commercially available phone supporting the new specification. Speakers, headsets, gamepads, file transfers... its original plan to connect mobile and fixed devices is a shadow compared to what Bluetooth can do today.
Moreover, it has the advantage of a very recognizable name, and when someone says "Bluetooth", people automatically understand what it's about. But where did it come from? How did Bluetooth become synonymous with wireless connectivity between devices and accessories? Believe it or not, there's an old Danish king in the middle...
No Myth: Bluetooth Comes From a King
"Bluetooth" is a reference to Harald Blåtand, son of Thyra Danebod and Gorm the Old, technically the first king of Denmark. Harald came to the throne after his father's death. Harald consolidated his reign over the Jutland peninsula and Zealand, and became king of Norway (although his control there didn't last long). To this we add his conversion and subsequent introduction of Christianity to Denmark, apparently with limited success.
Historians have attempted to determine the origin and exact translation of "Blåtand". The traditional explanation suggests that Harald had a particularly bad tooth with a bluish color, either due to poor dental care or to an illness suffered as a child. Another possibility is that Blåtand means "Blue Thane", an expression that became corrupted when it reached English. One way or another, "Blåtand" is today "Bluetooth".
The definitive association between the word and the specification happened in 1997, courtesy of Jim Kardach, engineer at Intel. At that time, Kardach was reading a historical novel about Vikings, and came across the name Harald Blåtand. Just as the king united Denmark and Norway (at least for a few years), the protocol sought to unite mobile devices with desktop computers, and Bluetooth became the perfect code name. Those responsible for the new specification had decided to adopt "PAN" (Personal Area Networking, proposed by IBM) as the official name; however, a quick trademark evaluation determined that "PAN" was a terrible candidate. The simplest and fastest option was to launch with "Bluetooth", a success in every sense. As a final bonus: the Bluetooth logo is formed by two runes, Hagall and Bjarkan, "H and B", from Harald Blåtand's initials.
