Claude, as he’s referred to eventually, is the protagonist from Grand Theft Auto III.  The protagonist from GTA2 was also called Claude with the given last name Speed.  It is known in the second game that the main character is young, possibly a teenager, so it’s likely speed was an alias rather than an actual last name.  Upon conjecture, assuming the character as the same in both games due to visual similarities, we’ve decided to call him Claude “Speed” Dean due to the very obvious similarity in appearance of Claude from GTA III and the well-known hollywood actor James Dean.