For decades, Lego has had a special appeal for both adults and children. Generations of people have grown up building with Lego, whether following instruction booklets or creating free-form structures solely from their imaginations.
Considering the global powerhouse that Lego is today, it’s interesting to look back at how Lego has developed in nearly a century of existence—and to discover how the company got its iconic name.
The Lego story begins with Danish carpenter and joiner Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who founded the Lego Group in 1932. The name comes from an abbreviation of the Danish words leg godt, which means “play well.” Ironically, the word lego also loosely translates as “I put together” or “I assemble” in Latin—something that Kirk Kristiansen didn't realize at the time.
Initially, Kirk Kristiansen made high-quality wooden toys until the mid-1940s, when he acquired a plastic injection molding machine and began developing the forerunner of the modern interlocking brick, initially known as “Automatic Binding Bricks.” The modern Lego brick was patented in 1958, and the Lego wheel was launched in 1962, soon followed by the first Lego building instructions in 1963. The Lego mini-figure was launched in 1979.
Other important milestones in Lego history:
- The first Legoland park opened in 1968, in Billund, Denmark. There are now Legoland parks in California, Florida, New York, Germany, Japan, Dubai, South Korea, Malaysia, and the UK.
- It wasn’t until 2002 that Lego launched its first retail store, in Cologne, Germany.
- Lego branched into the film business with the release of The Lego Movie in 2014, followed by the 2017 spinoff The Lego Batman Movie and the 2019 sequel The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
- After more than 90 years, the Lego Group is still primarily owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family.