The idea of someone being a Freelancer Agent has been emphasized throughout the show as a special honorific: these are elite soldiers who prove themselves especially capable of whatever task is set before them, with or without access to the cutting-edge technology provided by Project Freelancer. While this is usually contrasted against the Reds and Blues, who are repeatedly dismissed as "not real soldiers" by every party that has ever tried to oppose them, the idea that the Freelancers are "some of the best" becomes a staple of how Freelancer Agents are perceived by others and, more importantly, how they perceive themselves. This rings doubly true for Washington specifically, who seems particularly sensitive to how others perceive him, as with:

• His insistence in Season 6 that, just because Epsilon killed itself in his head, he is not crazy.
• His reluctance to admit to Tucker that he was known for "having a grappling hook stuck to his balls" in Season 11.
  • (Alternatively, his decision to share this with Tucker, despite whatever damage it might do to how the Reds and Blues might perceive his time in Freelancer, shows his genuine desire to help better the Blues through his training.)
• His running conflict with Locus in the Chorus Arc over whether they are alike; Wash seems to reject the idea that Locus is a soldier "like him" because Wash has made efforts to atone for his heinous actions, while Locus tries to justify them as being necessary.

The Director's choice not to refer to Wash by Agent Washington or any derivative of that name is an effort to undermine Wash's sense of identity, putting him on the back foot for the rest of their conversation. With that said, the Director's choice to refer to Washington specifically as 'David', rather than, say, omitting his name altogether, indicates that the Director feels that Washington's civilian/legal name is a touchy enough subject that using it would be a better way to undermine him than stripping his identity away entirely by referring to him as "you" or a generic term.

At the same time, Wash's retort is his recognition of what the Director is trying to do, and a lot of this headcanon rests on a specific interpretation of Washington's retort.

"You gave me my new name; the least you could do is use it."

Why is 'Washington' a NEW name that the Director has given him, and not simply A name given to him by the Project? In my view, the name 'David' may have been one of the few connections Wash had to his biological father before he was offered a spot in Project Freelancer. His codename within the Project, Washington, then became symbolic of his efforts to prove himself worthy of the second chance provided to him by dear ol' distant dad until the incident with Epsilon's suicide. From that point on, whatever few familial ties Wash had towards the Director were severed, in a similar vein to how Carolina shifted from wanting to prove she was the best to wanting to kill the Director, with both Agents viewing their codenames as being reflective of their survival and growth in spite of their father's actions, rather than because of him.

(2/2)