Copy & Paste: Criminal Minds Is Full of Ridiculously Repetitive Names

The English language only has so many names; even fewer if you get rid of the ones that would sound ridiculous nowadays. It's crystal clear that there was no way for such a long show to keep coming up with new names, and it also would've reduced the immersion, but it's still pretty funny how many names were overused in the series.

The Criminal Minds fans from the show's subreddit created a list of the most overused names in the series. It all started with u/kagamos97 writing a post titled "Everybody is called Frank".

"Once we noticed it, it was ridiculous and we couldn't unnotice. Every second man is called Frank, all minor characters (+ big boy Frank) but literally every three episodes it's Frank galore. [...] It's almost become a drinking game at this point!" the user wrote.

Other users joined them and shared other names they saw largely overused in Criminal Minds. According to them, the top 10 list of the writers' most favorite names of all time should look like this:

• Frank
• Katie
• Michael
• Ray
• Allison
• Lila
• Heather
• Ashley
• Matthew
• William

Apart from the first names, fans also noticed some last names that were often re-used — like Rollins, Lambert, Hightower, and Lynch.

During the discussion, some of the users suggested a fairly logical explanation. They think that the writers are just picking the first and last names of their family members or the filming crew. It could both explain the entire Frank gang situation nicely and be a wholesome detail about the guys behind the scenes.

Or it could be just an Excel tab with random names and a matter of pasting them into random episodes. But the cute family name theory sounds much more appealing, so we'd rather stick to that.