Who is Quincy?

One of the most commonly asked questions regarding the Quincy M. E. television series comes up all the time from those who don't regularly watch the show - what is Quincy's first name?

An episode entitled "Accomplice to Murder", gives us a partial answer, but does not answer the question definitively. Writers and producers of the series had maintained this secret and carefully crafted a first initial of "R" for our crime-fighting coroner. However since Quincy was part of the NBC mystery movie lineup series creator Glen A. Larson and Lou Shaw carried on the tradition of keeping to a single named protagonist as the star of the show. In fact, Larson has expressed in interview with the Archive for American Television that in terms of audience identification with a series, names are particularly important. He also comments that Lou had the idea of a name such as "Quincy" and Glen had enjoyed the work of Quincy Jones. So the outgrowth of these two ideas evolved into "Quincy." This also allowed writers to create a mystery in and of itself and gave the of allure of something fresh and special to keep audiences interested.

This actually makes a great deal of sense since the NBC wheel series was made up of characters such as Colombo, MacMillan, McCloud, and Banacek. years later, CBS and ABC followed suit with a similar idea entitling the 80s series - Magnum P.I. and MacGyver, respectively.

At one point, in later years Klugman and others speculated that the "R" was short for Robert. However, many years later, during a 1998 interview with American television archives) Jack revealed that Quincy never had a first name and that this speculation kept the audiences guessing.

From this local M.E.'s vantage point, I feel that his first name is not important, since he's a humble man of principles, and his actions speak louder than his name.