Technically, it does not stand for Detective Comics.
Shortly after National was formed, they began to use the logo "Superman-DC" in reference to their two most popular titles, Superman and Detective Comics. It was a kind of branding.
This lead to individual issues being casually called "DC" comics by buyers, and eventually the group was referring to itself internally as "DC".
Later on National merged with All-American under a single National banner, and all their comics (Flash, Wonder Woman, Justice Society) now had the same "DC" branding that National's had, further cementing the name DC as a type of separate brand.
Decades later, people had just been calling the company DC so long that the original purpose of the letters as an abbreviation of Detective Comics was forgotten about. So National Publications, now publishing basically nothing but DC branded comics, just renamed themselves "DC", but since you can't trademark that they became "DC Comics".
In short, DC does not stand for Detective Comics, but the "DC" that was used on the logo that inspired the name that tied all the comics together originally did. Like how Carl's Jr. is no longer a junior version of Carl's because Carl's doesn't exist anymore, but the name was more famous than what inspired it so it stuck.
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