Columbo's first name was Philip

According to Wikipedia's Columbo page, his first name was Frank. They even have a picture of his ID from the show, and you can clearly see where it says Frank Columbo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo

Interesting, but how about a show where almost all the characters full names were never known? On Gilligan's Island we knew the names, Gilligan, the Skipper, the Professor, Lovey. The characters full names were Willy Gilligan, Jonas Grumby (Skipper), Dr. Roy Hinkley (Professor), Mary Ann Summers, Ginger Grant, Thurston Howell III, and Lovey was Eunice Wentworth Howell. Theres some useless trivia for your next party!!

Snopes will set you free:
http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/nonames.asp

Nope, it wasn't "Phillip", or at least if it was, we don't know it from the god-awful show that was titled -- depending on which moment of its one year run we're talking about -- "Mrs. Columbo", "Kate Columbo", "Kate the Detective" and "Kate Loves a Mystery". That's right, four name changes in one year. At any rate, the show had basically no association whatsoever with the Columbo or its creators, and over the course of its short run it was revealed that Kate Columbo's husband was not the same Lt. Columbo we all love, but some other LAPD detective named "Columbo", whom she may or may not have divorced. Reading between the lines, the show was a cheap gimmick to hook in Columbo fans, all of whom hated the show and the failure to get crossover fans meant re-re-reinventing the show.

At any rate, I'm really surprised TV Guide are spreading this myth, they should really know better: Columbo's first name is unknown. That's the party line from Peter Falk himself, the show's creators Levinson and Link, and pretty much anyone else who had any close association with Columbo's production.

I treat 'Mrs. Columbo' the same way I do the ending of 'St. Elsewhere' - I choose not to accept the interpretation forced upon us by the producers. In the case of 'Mrs. Columbo', so far as I'm concerned, she was the wife of another Lt. Columbo on the LAPD police force. It's not that uncommon a name and the police force for the City of Angels is probably large enough to make having two Lt. Columbos feasible.

What makes this easier is that it's stated several times in the original series that Columbo and his wife were high school sweethearts. So that invalidates Kate Mulgrew (about a quarter century younger than Peter Falk) as being THAT Columbo's wife.

And thus, anything she said about Columbo during the run of the show can't be about the rumpled detective we all know.

Plus - during the run of the show she apparently divorced him and reverted back to her maiden name (Callahan). The kid even had her name changed to Callahan.

So why should anything from that show matter when it comes to Columbo? I say his first name is still a mystery.

Hey, III had Richard f'n Pryor, man!!! Nothing Pryor does should ever be forgotten.

She may have been "Kate" on Mrs. Columbo, but I just watched a Dean martin Celebrity Roast of Frank Sinatra where Falk played "Lt. Columbo" asking Sinatra for an autograph for his wife "Rose"

Actually the new movie pretends that III and IV never happened. And yes, I realize no one cares :)