«Our name, both family and baptismal, our surname, are the two words that define us, accompany us like our shadow throughout our lives, from the moment we are born until we die.

Family (names) derived from nicknames express, like those, certain physical, spiritual, and moral qualities of the individual, or have given rise to their clothing, habits, or actions, words, or phrases they commonly use. Qualities, actions, etc., are not always expressed literally, but often through metaphors taken from the animal and plant world, inanimate nature, or historical and other figures.» - Manolis Triantafyllidis (from the inside cover of the book)

Research on the dialect and family names from Syros, especially on nicknames, is rarely published. These latter, known as sclitades, nicknames, and pseudonyms, hold special significance locally, reflecting mentalities and carrying a very specific culture.

Anything new added to our existing knowledge about the Syros nicknames is a pleasant development. Philologist Michalis I. Frangias offers us such a delightful work, presenting most of - about three thousand and... - family pseudonyms borne by the people of Syros.

The researcher builds a scaffolding and the framework of a bold construction, which he constructs with dedication and dignity and proceeds to build systematically and convincingly from a distant era when, as today, Rock and Bek existed and call out to us from the depths of history that they will continue to exist.» - Achilleas Dimitropoulos (from the back cover of the book)