From Lostpedia:

Name reference

The real-life Dr. Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass) is a noted psychologist and Hindu spiritualist. In 1963, he was dismissed from Harvard University for his research (in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg and others) into psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals. He later traveled to India, where he was given his Hindu spiritual name "Ram Dass", which translates as "Servant of God". Alpert wrote of his experiences in an unusual tome entitled Be Here Now, and founded the Hanuman Foundation. See Bio and Wikipedia entry. Damon Lindelof confirmed that the character of Alpert was indeed named after a famous person. [1]

Richard Alpert's colleague Aldous Huxley wrote a book called Island, which has been referenced in Lost, most specifically with regard to the Pala Ferry; Pala is a Utopian island in Huxley's book.

The first episode of The Carpenters short-lived TV series Make your Own Kind of Music[2] featured a guest appearance by musician Herb Alpert[3]. Different versions of the show's theme song are featured in several Lost episodes, most notoriously during the opening sequence of the Season 2 premiere. ("Man of Science, Man of Faith"). Richard is also the first name of the male half of The Carpenters.

Richard is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "powerful leader".

Illana refers to Richard as "Ricardus" and it is Latin for Richard.

sumi, oooh. good thought about the aging. I actually fear for Richard's life because he might be aged to death.

Are we to believe, btw, that the only survivors of the original flight who were left on the island after Jack and friends split are Bernard & Rose, Sawyer and Jin?

And Vincent!

Maybe not!Locke is really Vincent in disguise!

AARGH. I really don't think I like the idea of the plan actually working, and I want that to just be The Incident. Because otherwise, a bunch of yahoos just CHANGED HISTORY because of THEIR FUCKING LOVE LIVES.

I assume that, given the whole destiny thing, that's what it was. That they caused the incident, that caused the hatch, that caused their plane to crash. It's all very Matrix-y.

I'm very sad that they continue to add more questions and answer very little.

With Lost I guess it's 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

I assume that, given the whole destiny thing, that's what it was. That they caused the incident, that caused the hatch, that caused their plane to crash.

That ate the cat that ate the rat that lived in the house that...JACK! built.

It all adds up!

although they didn't really CAUSE the incident, Jacob's rival along with Jacob himself are the two people who seemed to CAUSE the incident.

Apparently the Latin was "He who will save us all." I was almost close.

I assume that, given the whole destiny thing, that's what it was. That they caused the incident, that caused the hatch, that caused their plane to crash.

I don't see how that's the case. The Incident was the drilling that released all that magnetic energy. That happened before the bomb went off, so Jack et al didn't cause it. My question is what the bomb was supposed to do. The obvious answer is annihilate the island, so that the magnetic energy is destroyed. But another possibility is that the nuclear reaction could act in weird timey-wimey ways with the magnetic field, causing... pretty much whatever the writers want.