MY Names
My legal name is Efthymios Kallos. However, people don't like this name very much and have been using different ways to call me. Especially when I went to the United States in 2003, the matter became so complicated that even I am confused sometimes. So here is a list of my names and which people use them.
Themos ("e" is pronounced like "ai" in the word "air")
This is how my close friends and family call me; my mother gave it to me because she thought "Efthymios" was a really bad one.
Themos ("e" pronounced like "ee" in the word "bee")
My former housemate and most American people call me like that. Don't know why.
Themo
My former Ph.D. advisor, because he is half-Greeks and knows that names in Greek do not have always a final 's'.
Themoulis
My wife calls me like that. And my mother-in-law. And the italian guy from work that overheard a conversation we had.
Efthymios
One of my professors at USC called me like that; I introduced myself to him like that since I wanted him to have in mind the formal name I have in the homework sets. Then he started calling me like that during class, so all of these classmates and his research group is calling me Efthymios.
Efthymis
An old guy in my home town calls me like that.
Efthymakis
An old lady in my mother's home town calls me like that.
F3
My roommate Rajay likes that name a lot (Efthy-->F3).
Kallos
This is how people know me in the Kung-Fu class. I said both Themos Kallos when I introduced myself, but the instructor only kept the easier one.
Tim
My name in Starbucks & at the Tennis Club. For some reason people there did not understand Themos without saying it first for 4 times, so I had to switch to something simpler.
Johnny
My name in clubs and bars. I needed an easy American name that Americans have heard before, because in the presence of loud music it's impossible to grasp a name you've never heard before.
Tough Carlos
The car-dealer lady calls me like that. The full details are in my blog: here
Timaras
At the age of 6, when I started learning english, my teacher used to call me Efthymios, or Tim. Later on, when I got a computer, I added the part -aras (-άρας), which in Greek is inserted to denote something as very big. Since then, I kept using timaras as my nickname (for example, when I played Civilization, I was King Timaras, my capital was Timaroupolis, and my people were called Timarioi).