Columbo - Character Profile - Biography - First Name

First Name

Columbo's first name is never explicitly mentioned during the series. Even the opening credits just simply read, "Peter Falk as Columbo". When asked, Columbo always emphatically answers "Lieutenant". In the episode "By Dawn's Early Light", when he is asked if he has a first name, he replies that the only person who "calls" him "that" is his wife.

However, the name "Frank" is often seen relatively clearly on his police ID. In the 1971 episode "Dead Weight", when Columbo introduces himself to General Hollister, the audience is shown a brief close-up of Columbo's badge and police ID; the signature reads "Frank Columbo". The signature "Frank Columbo" is most clearly visible in the episode "A Matter of Honor", in which it is also seen that Columbo's badge number is 416. This later appears on the address of a neighbor of the local police comisario (played by Pedro Armendáriz Jr.). Universal Studios, in the box set of seasons 1–4 under their Playback label, included a picture of Columbo's police badge on the back of the box, with signature "Frank Columbo" and "Lt. Frank Columbo" in type. This appears to be a different badge from the one seen in "Dead Weight", with a different signature (a common occurrence with props). The name "Frank" is also clearly seen in the episode from 1991 called "Death Hits The Jackpot" when Lt. Columbo shows how shiny his badge is when explaining to Rip Torn's character how he was able to figure out how he was in the victim's apartment at the time of the murder. When Columbo holds his badge up, the name Frank is clearly typed on his LAPD I.D. card at the top.

Several sources cite the lieutenant's name as "Philip Columbo". Columbo's first name Philip was conceived by Fred L. Worth. In Worth's book, The Trivia Encyclopedia, the fictitious entry about Columbo's first name was actually a "copyright trap" – a deliberately false statement intended to reveal subsequent copyright infringement. When his false information was later included as one of the questions in the board game Trivial Pursuit, he filed a $300 million lawsuit. The publishers of Trivial Pursuit did acknowledge that Worth's books were among their sources, but argued that this was not improper, and that facts are not protected by copyright. In addition, they used multiple resources to compile the questions for their game instead of plagiarizing just one source. The district court judge agreed, ruling in favor of the Trivial Pursuit publishers. The decision was appealed, and in September 1987 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling. Worth asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case, but the Court declined, denying certiorari in March 1988.