I'd suggest you look at it as funny and not annoying: IKEA in London, being a very multicultural place, likely has many non-native English speakers as well!

When all else fails, you can always go back to the basic international language of gesturing, pointing and acting out the use of something to get to your point. (Or more boringly, point at the name on your phone)

You could also try adapting pronounciation to what they might expect first, and then if you establish a friendly conversation, offer the real Swedish pronounciation next.

It sounds like that would be very much what use of Swedish names in a global brand should invite, and not annoyance for Swedes :)

This is the mutley crueh story all over again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut

> When Mötley Crüe visited Germany, singer Vince Neil said the band could not figure out why "the crowds were chanting, 'Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!'"

But like those German speakers assumed German orthography, English speakers will assume English orthography when presented with Swedish words.

Only foreign words learned by sound have a chance of getting pronounced correctly, e.g. croissant or Djokovic... maybe even Smörgåsbord?

If there were a British furniture shop operating globally and using placenames for products, British people would have trouble asking the locals for HAWICK (hoik), LOUGHBOROUGH (luffburra), FROME (froom) or YNYSYBWL (anissabul)

> As a Swede in London

At least you’re definitely right.

Try speaking or writing English English to US English natives.

I was surprised at a Jysk in Spain where I used the dialect pronunciation of a Norwegian city (saying Læknes for Leknes) when buying chairs with that name, and the girl not only understood me but used close to the same pronunciation when asking someone to get them from storage

Do you find ABBA's English pronunciation/phrasing annoying?