By ALLAN HALL

Last updated at 18:39 06 March 2008

Denmark is fed up with being treated like a doormat by the Swedish furniture giant Ikea - and being named for them too.

Academics in Copenhagen claim to have discovered a pattern at Ikea whereby high-end items - chairs, beds, home furnishings - get named after Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian towns whereas the doormats, draught excluders and runners are named after Danish towns.

"Swedish Imperialism," claims Danish academic, Klaus Kjöller of the University of Copenhagen.

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Call me Koge: One of the controversially named Ikea rugs

Together with his colleague, professor Tröls Mylenberg of the University of Southern Denmark, he conducted a thorough analysis of the names used in the Ikea catalogue.

They concluded that the Swedish names are reserved for the "better" products, and that even Norwegian names manage to make it into the bed department.

But the "lesser" products bear Danish names like "Roskilde" and "Köge".

"Doormats and runners, as well as inexpensive wall-to-wall carpeting are third-class, if not seventh-class, items when it comes to home furnishings," Kjöller said.

"The stuff that goes on the floor is about as low as it gets."

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'Swedish Imperialism': Ikea is being attacked by the Danes for its furniture naming policy

A large number of Danes believe that Kjöller and Mylenberg were absolutely right to point out what they perceived as Ikea insults.

One reader wrote to a newspaper to complain that "despite the fact that no one has noticed, until now, the brazen insult to the Danish nation, it couldn't be anything but intentional for a gigantic, well-organised company like Ikea to have used Danish names for its doormats.

"After all, the company has full-time employees whose job is to find names for its products, and these employees analyse all new product names to search for potential negative effects on sales worldwide."

Kjöller says the issue should not be played down. He argues that Ikea's denigrating naming convention "symbolically portrays Denmark as the doormat of neighboring Sweden, a country with a larger economy and population".

Sweden and Denmark have not been the best of friends through history: Norway was once Danish until Sweden annexed it before granting it independence a century ago.

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Wonderful Copenhagen: Danes are said to be threatening to name a low-alcohol beer brewed by Carlsberg after a Swedish town - because the Swedes loathe 'lite' beer

Many Danes smart at the sign at Stockholm Airport welcoming visitors to the "Capital of Scandinavia". Copenhageners like to claim that title.

Officials at Ikea headquarters in the Swedish district of Scania - ironically, it once belonged to Denmark - reject the criticism.

"It's nonsense to say that we did this on purpose. It was a pure coincidence, and it happened many decades ago," said Ikea spokesperson Charlotte Lindgren.

"The employee who chose Danish names for floor coverings retired long ago.

"Besides," she adds, "these critics appear to greatly underestimate the importance of floor coverings. They are fundamental elements of furnishing. We draw worldwide attention to Danish place names with our products. That has to be a positive thing."

Germany's Der Spiegel magazine reported that Denmark is considering retaliating by naming one of its low-alcohol beers brewed by Carlsberg after a Swedish town - because the Swedes traditionally loathe "lite" beer.