Volvo® Name Story

 

As kids, and now namers, we have often wanted to tease conservative Volvo owners that their cars had that name because it they were known to Revolve (roll over). For those of us old enough to remember the original Volvo models, they looked like giant skinny VW bugs. They had pretty good performance though, and so were raced a lot on tracks, where they did indeed roll over a lot.

The name Volvo is not a Swedish name, but actually derived from the Latin "I roll" and was first coined and used the famous SKF Ball Bearing company. When two of their engineers left to start a car company, they got permission to take the name with them.

Of course, the whole irony of this is that Volvo Cars eventually built its reputation on safety - and not their capacity to roll.

Today there are two major organizations sharing the Volvo name. The car company that is a subsidiary of Ford Motors, and the independent Volvo Group which makes buses, boat engines and construction equipment.