what does this symbol mean?
IEC 60417 An angular B made of a vertical line and two arrow-like strokes

Bluetooth symbol

Bluetooth. The angular B marks Bluetooth, and on a phone’s status bar it shows a Bluetooth device is connected.

How to read it

The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune: the Younger Futhark runes Hagall (ᚼ) and Bjarkan (ᛒ) merged into one, the initials of the Danish king Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson. On a Pixel phone the Bluetooth icon appears at the top of the screen when the phone is connected to something through Bluetooth, and on an iPhone a Bluetooth battery icon shows the battery level of a paired device.

Also searched as: Bluetooth icon.

Where the name came from

According to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, Jim Kardach of Intel suggested Bluetooth as a temporary code name at a 1996 meeting of Intel, Ericsson and Nokia. King Harald united Denmark and Norway in 958, and Kardach compared that with uniting the PC and cellular industries. It was meant to be replaced by RadioWire or PAN, but PAN was already in wide use online and a trademark search on RadioWire could not be finished in time for launch.

A trademark

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group owns the Bluetooth word mark and the figure mark, the rune logo. Companies may use them on products that have completed the Bluetooth qualification process.

Where this symbol came from

oldsymbols.comBerkananThe logo joins two runes, Hagall and Bjarkan (ᛒ), Harald Bluetooth’s initials.

Write in runes

stringmash.comRune translatorThe Bluetooth logo joins two runes. Write your own name in the same alphabet.

More power and device symbols

Sources

Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research

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