None of these episodes ever included an explanation for the nickname. the character had a variety of 'real names,' while still being known as The Falcon. Though Gay Falcon was the character's name in the short story, in the film he was renamed Gay Lawrence, so that The Falcon became a nickname, comparable to The Saint.
The film was intended to establish a character who would replace Leslie Charteris' The Saint, hero of a popular RKO series of B movies starring George Sanders. The Falcon was quickly brought to the screen by RKO in 1941, in the film The Gay Falcon, in which he was redefined as a suave English gentleman-detective with a weakness for beautiful women.
Falcon is a freelance adventurer and troubleshooter, definitely on the hardboiled side, a man who makes his living 'keeping his mouth shut and engaging in dangerous enterprises.' The Falcon - The character of Gay Falcon, later known in films and radio simply as The Falcon, was created in 1940 by Michael Arlen in his short story, ' Gay Falcon', which was first published in 1940 in Town & Country magazine.
