It’s the 4th day of our theme week on 5 Things You Didn’t Know Were Named After People. Today we’re talking about something that we all use pretty much every day – Bluetooth! Bluetooth was named for a 10th century Viking king named Harald Bluetooth. He was famous for uniting Denmark and Norway, and also having a dead tooth that was dark blue/grey, which gave him his nickname “Bluetooth”. In the late 90s, 3 industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia, met to plan the standardization of new short-range radio technology. Bluetooth was suggested by someone at Intel, because the technology would unite devices much like Harold Bluetooth united the tribes of Denmark. The name was meant to be a placeholder until they came up with something better. But the technology ended up catching on before the name could be changed. The Bluetooth logo is a combination of 2 ancient runes representing H and B, for Harald Bluetooth. The first Bluetooth device, which was a hands-free mobile headset, was introduced in 1999. Today, over 4.7 billion Bluetooth devices are shipped every year. Learn more in the audio below.