The mystery of the CTC name

If you google CTC, the name comes from the names Celsius, Tellander and Clarin. But is that true? And was there even a man named Clarin? There may have been, but there's also another theory as to why CTC is called what it is.

Volvo, the disponent's daughter and the CTC book

Gunnar Tellander, who founded CTC in 1923, moved in the circles of entrepreneurs who often used Latin in their company names, such as Eminent ("Stand out" or "I rise") and Volvo ("I roll"). That's why many think it likely that he followed that trend.

Gunnar Tellander died in 1930, but one person who worked closely with him was CTC's first manager in Ljungby, Helge Andrén. Andrén was employed by CTC in Gothenburg as early as the 1920s, and when his daughter Gunilla Grahm visited CTC in Ljungby in 2013, she said that she had heard her father explain many times that it was a Latin phrase that gave the company its name. The phrase was Cum Tentatione Corrigendi, which means With the temptation to change. Tellander's own motto was Further Development of Technology and Function, and perhaps he wanted to choose something that fit his vision.

Another argument that strengthens the theory is CTC's 1948 book, History of Heating and Heating Technology 1923-1948. Here the phrase appears again. A travelling staff of engineers, travellers and service men are always at work for the CTC - Cum Tentatione Corrigendi - for further improvement, the book says.

Celsius, Tellander, Clarin

The more official explanation for many years, however, is that CTC is three initials, Celsius, Tellander and Clarin. It is unclear when this explanation was coined, but the first C would then stand for Celsius, which was the name of a company founded by Tellander in 1907. The T would stand for Gunnar Tellander himself and the last C would stand for a co-founder, Clarin. It is not known if there was a person named Clarin close to Tellander, but it may have been a financier.

One story circulating at CTC is that the Latin words Tentatione and Corrigendi were difficult to pronounce. It was therefore decided that the official explanation of what the CTC stood for would be Celsius, Tellander, Clarin. It was easier that way.

How that turned out, and which of the two explanations is correct, we will probably never know for sure. But certainly the phrase With the allure to change anyway fits well with CTC's 100 years as innovators in heating, for Swedish and foreign homes.

Published: 2023-02-08