It would be funny if the writers let audiences think they’d finally learned Columbo’s first name just to reveal it as a bait-and-switch.
Much like how we never saw “Mrs. Columbo” during the whole run of the series… until we saw a photograph of her at her funeral service. Then at the end of the episode we learn that the funeral was a ruse to catch her would-be killer and the photograph was a picture of her sister.
I regret that I have only one Plus to give for the answer I came here to give but was already here.
More specifically, I know of no evidence whatsoever, no matter how tangential or circumstantial, that
I mean, tri-via does mean “three roads”: trivius was a temple commonly found at crossroads, from the attestations in Lewis and Short, most typically to Diana. Trivialis as an adjective meant “commonplace”, as of something you could find at any crossroad, and trivium was the Three Roads of education in medieval Latin, the first stage of higher education, before the quadrivium, and then mastery.
“Trivial” (adj) = “unimportant” and “trivia” (n) = “random facts” are, I suspect, cousins. The former meaning deriving directly from the Classical Latin. The latter being derived from the Medieval Scholastic term, and implying “knowledge which any educated person should know”.
The connection between one and the other is interesting, but the thing about “news and information at crossroads” sounds like a Just So Story.
Is there a follow up article which explains why Columbo might be carrying fake ID?
Lt. Columbo’s first name is Frank. Period.
Trivium, the place where three roads meet, and where Oedipus unknowingly killed his dad…
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