Germany
Polska
France
Nederland
Suomi
Español
Product names at Stiegelmeyer and Burmeier
When a folding bed was named after an empress
125th anniversary
Today, it is hard to imagine a bed or a bedside cabinet from Stiegelmeyer or Burmeier that does not bear a name. But in the era that followed 1900, where there was still very little use of media in Germany, it would have been difficult to reach potential customers with a catchy name or promotional texts. For many years, the most popular marketing instrument was the general product catalogue in print form. At the same time, this doubled as an extremely precise order list.
This was why, in the period from the 1900s right up into the 1990s, every single conceivable feature variant had its own catalogue number. So if you were looking for an iron bedstead from the imperial era with struts, decorations or a wooden footboard – then all you would have to do is order number 220, 227 or 235!
The finding aid for the Stiegelmeyer archive contains product numbers right up to the high thousands. There does not seem to be one consistent system for awarding numbers that has continued to prevail over the years and decades. It is still clear though that the predominantly four-digit numbers contained a portion that corresponded to a certain product category and a part containing consecutive numbering of the various versions. For a period of many years, for example, all cots began with the number 56 or 69.
When it comes to medical beds, the total absence of giving them names despite the continued march of progress is really quite remarkable – even a successful classic model such as the brakable hospital bed built for the Berlin Charité in the 1930s never deviated from the number 5350. This number was even passed on to a wooden chair from Burmeier made of beechwood in the 1990s.
However, right from the start, Stiegelmeyer also manufactured beds for private customers, and in this way the odd product name slipped in after all from time to time. As early as in the 1900s, an ornate gold-coloured bed appeared on a catalogue page as follows: “Union brass bedsteads are at home in every modern bedroom”. The Union beds go extremely well with the “Universum patented wire mesh mattress” of 1908, which already suggests global ambitions. It almost seems as though a “U family of names” is about to take form – if it were not for the fact that, in the 1920s, a completely different idea emerged.
In the catalogue of 1928, there are some products that bear women’s names for the very first time. About that time, Stiegelmeyer also manufactured doll’s beds and these were named Hanna, Anita, Erika, Marga and Elsa. For adults there is also a trio of particularly elaborately decorated steel tube beds bearing the names Resi, Rosi and Renate.
This principle celebrates a big – if somewhat short-lived – breakthrough in the catalogue of 1931. A total of 25 bed variants now bear women’s names, including classic German names such as Berta, Hilde, Helga and Hedwig, but also including more fashionable international names like Harriet, Lucie and Rose. For the first time, these beds no longer come with a product number. Probably, this very fact will prove to be a reason for their demise when it comes to interpreting the order form. You can almost hear the order centre grumbling at the lack of clarity about whether “Helga” is to be supplied as a single bed or a double bed. At any rate, in 1937, the women’s names are once again replaced with numbers. As the catalogue triumphantly announces: “No. 2570 (formerly Helga)”. The Helga double bed is given the number 2571.
On the other hand, Stiegelmeyer names selected pieces of furniture after German cities for the first time in 1937. This principle continues right into the 1960s. For example, local patriots from northern Germany are able to combine a cupboard named “Hamburg” with a stool called “Altona”.
The era of the “economic miracle” in the 1950s sees the return of women’s names once again – but this time with glamour and glitz. Hilde, Berta and Agnes have been retired, only for them to be replaced with Lola, Loretta, Tina, Arabella and – Soraya. This name belonging to the Persian empress of that era was used to grace a rather mundane and space-saving piece of compact furniture. “Cupboard with integrated folding bed, for folding out and up via the narrow end, with a spiral mesh mattress”.
In the end, all these attempts come to nothing until the big turning point comes in 1977. In this year, Stiegelmeyer introduces an exceedingly innovative new hospital bed and surprisingly venerates it with the distinguished name “Classic”. This decision has sweeping consequences, since the many variants of the Classic give rise to a large family of names that all begin with the letter C. These range from Contura, Concepta, Corona, Comtessa and Concentra to the legendary Comforta in the year 1980. This successful bed that sold more than 100,000 models right up to the end of the century is the first product in the contemporary collective memory of the company that bears a name. After this, there was no way back to purely numbers. The history of awarding names expands soon after that, with the advent of the Royal and Regenta models, to encompass wooden care beds as well.
The C series has added significance since, even today, it remains standard practice at Stiegelmeyer and Burmeier to give products names. Stiegelmeyer names tend to have a Romanic ring to them. Latin, Italian or Esperanto serve as sources of inspiration. The words should sound pleasing and also be catchy, and should ideally draw attention to an important property of a product. A case in point is the Puro hospital bed, whose sleek design and excellent hygienic properties influenced the choice of name.
There is a small special range at Burmeier. Our subsidiary for homecare is proud of the history of the Lippe region and so fosters not only Romanic names like Regia and Allura but also names from the area’s history, such as Hermann, Varus, Cherusker or Westfalia. The most recent addition to the family in 2020 is the Lenus ultra-low bed, named after an ancient god of healing and springs.
How does the Stiegelmeyer Group go about finding a name for a new product today? To start with, people from product management and marketing compile a list of the product's key features. These features are then used to search through international dictionaries. Let's take as our example a new ultra-low bed for nursing homes and carry out a search for suitable Latin terms. Possible words could be deep (altus), low (humilis), ground (solum), earth (terra) as well as many other terms. In this case, the name of the Tereno bed was derived from the word ”terra", which evokes words like "ground" or "deep” in many languages.
A thorough check is made of all items in a list of possible favourites. To start with, no other product from the medical device or furniture industry should already bear the same name. However, we should also give up the idea of being able to create a completely new and unique word: in all likelihood there is no short and easily pronounceable word that is not already used as a name in some corner of the world.
An even more difficult task is to rule out any undesirable meanings in other languages. It would be very annoying if the Celtic god of healing turned out to be a Finnish swear word. All this calls for careful Internet research, and our suggestions are also vetted by our international subsidiaries.
After a 125-year corporate history, we have come a long way from the Erika doll's bed to the Evario hospital bed, and from the Soraya folding bed to the Sicuro tera intensive care bed. These two juxtapositions in particular demonstrate clearly, however, that the basic ingredients of a good name are always the same: a pleasing yet catchy sound, a variety of vowels, simple consonants and a nod to the product's strengths. And so may it continue, whatever the latest fashion dictates.
