Just for you Cass

Welcome, Griggs! Well, nobody's quite sure about that. If you go to the home page of this site, and click the "Columbo FAQs" tab, there's a whole discussion of what his name may or may not be. It's pretty interesting to read, if you like to see more about the series, and they feature even more "sightings" of the badge than I realized!

I think a lot of people do think that it may be Frank, but the consensus seems to be that nobody can say for sure, and/or (if I remember right) that the creators never named him at all in the series, even while creating it. It is a mystery! :)

Nice to have you aboard the forums!

I have never understood this desperate need to know Columbo's first name! (Shown by how many times this has come up in the forum - a simple search will provide loads of threads on this.)

What does it matter? Will it change your enjoyment of the shows if his name is "Frank"? Will you prefer them more if you know his name was "Philip" or "Peter" or even "Betty"?

For me, and because there will never be another episode of Columbo produced, I enjoy delving down into the minutiae. Though I've seen all the episodes many times, I am always on the look out for "just one more thing" that I might not have noticed before, or which might be a fun and unresolved thing about which we can still speculate. It helps keep the series alive a bit, and though I would enjoy it even without those little extras, finding them is delightful. :)

Not only can the name "Frank" be clearly seen, the other interesting thing is that the badge on the ID card says "Sergeant" when the metal badge says "Lieutenant" and the badge number on the id says "235" where the metal badge says "416." If I could post screen caps here, I would do so.