The Medic’s Real Name Sucks

Over the years, I have drifted away from Team Fortress 2. But for a long time, I was known as Medic, or The Medic, or sometimes BLU Medic or RED Medic depending on the day. My name on here is Medic, even if my display name randomly switches between Medic, Arkay and Retvik, and my online aliases for years were some variations of the name Medic. And if you asked me what my real name was, I would lie constantly and pick something random. But I also mever actually suggested an official name for the official TF2 Medic.

We didn’t know officially (i.e. in-game or in media) for a long time either. Up until the massively-delayed comic series, in which the devil (or some demonic character) calls Medic Mr. Ludwig. And in all honesty, that name fucking sucks. We’re talking about one of the best healer characters in the history of gaming, someone who makes playing the doctor FUN, and we’re calling him THAT? Are you kidding me?

Turns out, the writers didn’t like the name either. And someone went and pointed out that the pharmacy in Rottenburg (my favourite MvM map) had a better name in it. But the writers were indecisive. Eventually, Jay Pinkerton wrote an email and explained the official name completely.

So Medic is officially Herbert Ludwig Humboldt.

But this still sucks. Herbert Ludwig Humboldt is still a dumb name. It’s an okay reference, I guess, but this is THE MEDIC we are talking about. He deserves a name that isn’t just a reference, that isn’t just taken off a sign on a random map, that isn’t Herbert. I mean, this is a guy who successfully implanted a baboon uterus into the TFC Heavy and brought Sniper back to life after he’d been dead for an entire day. This is the mad genius who removed someone’s entire skeleton without anyone noticing until it was too late, and stitched 8 additional souls onto his own soul, tricking hell in the process. And you want to call him HERBERT?

Herbert is too soft a name for a person who is described to not actually give a fuck about people, he’s just ‘healing’ his team mates  to continue his experiments. The TF2 mercs were just useful test subjects, the TFC mercs, Medic could not have given two shits about them, they were just fresh meat and not even as good to work on. To the point that Medic didn’t even bother trying to bring them back to life the way he did with Sniper, or even in an experimental way. And let’s be honest, the only reason Medic went back to the TF2 mercs is because TFC Heavyu hurt Archimedes.

But here’s the thing. I don’t think that should be Medic’s real name. Medic is too cool for some basicass German first name with a referential surname. Herbert Ludwig Humboldt should be nothing more than an alias. A pseudonym. Something Medic uses when he’s trying to be normal.

Let me put things another way: Medic has always been by far one of the more mysterious TF2 characters. In fact, Valve themselves didn’t know what to do with him, to the point that the nothing-burger that was Meet the Pyro was believed to be finished before Meet the Medic, and they refused to release Meet the Pyro before Meet the Medic, that was how… off Medic was. Medic is just as much an enigma as Pyro and Spy are. Medic having a normal name takes away from him being Medic.

Plus, we always just KNEW him as Medic, nothing else. He was never out there, having a real name, having things outside of being Medic. Soldier being called Jane Doe works, because, well, he’s fucking insane. Demo being called Tavish fits, because he’s been shown to have a life outside of the TF2 mercs, he’s a more public person. Scout is too dumb to hide his real name. I fucking hated when we found out Sniper’s name wasn’t Mr. Mundy but in fact something far, far worse, because he was secretly from the sunken kingdom of New Zealand, and  the not knowing a first name led to cool speculations. But at the same time, Sniper is also someone who probably had a ton of peudonyms. He, Medic and Spy shouldn’t have ever had real names, they should have only had pseudonyms and fake aliases, because they’re smart enough to not let their real names be out there, they probably destroyed their pasts.

And Medic probably did so more than anyone else. After all, how do you remove a skeleton without a patient dying, escape and no one builds on it. But also why the fuck would Helen, the Administrator, not be more interested in Medic’s work. He’s better at bringing people back from the dead than Engineer is, clearly.

But yeah, anyway, Medic’s official name is too soft and cuddly for a person who has a bottomless supply of needles. So I suggest that it’s just a pseudonym, not his actual name, which has been lost to time, because why would Medic let anyone know who he truly is?

Do I have any real authority on this? No. But, well, I think I have more authority than most.