What's your name?

My name is *Efstathia Maria Pavlakos*
but everyone calls me Effie =)

I got my first name from my Grandmother, my father's mother, because it is a Greek tradition that the husband names his children after his parents, so I got stuck with my name.
Effie, in the Greek culture means serenity, peace and kindness, which for the most part I am =)

My middle name, Maria, was given to me by my Godmother because her name is Maria also and she was jealous because she doesn't have any sons so her Grandchildren wouldn't be named after her.

When I was younger and I would tell people my name, for some reason they couldn’t pronounce it, and so I would tell them that my first name is Maria because that seemed more normal to me.. When my grandmother found out of course, she wasn't very happy with me because she takes great pride in our name (which I didn't). But now I have grown fond of my name... Even though I never tell anyone (except for anyone reading this) what my full Greek name is)

My last name, Pavlakos, as many last names, also comes from my father's side of the family. As in most traditions, the children take the father's last name, and so, as did I. I honestly, have no idea where my last name came from or what it means. The only thing I know about it is that it is a Spartan name because my father and his father and so on, were born and raised in Sparta (which in Greek is actually pronounced Sparti).