The brainchild of IKEA is the late Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish businessman. He envisioned a store full of functional furniture that's easy to assemble.

He started his first business at age five. He bought matchbooks in bulk and sold them individually. When he was 10, he was selling pens, pencils, seeds for flower, and Christmas tree decorations. Kamprad started IKEA in 1943 when he was 17 years old.

IKEA expanded to other countries, Norway in 1963, Denmark in 1969. Over the next decade, IKEAs spread to countries like Germany, Japan, Australia and Canada.

There is a system to the unusual product names. Beds have names of places in Norway. Sofas are named after towns in...