Did ancient Greeks use nick-names?

by michaeljsmith

Wikipedia lists some ancient Greek names along with their meanings:

  • Nikomachos from nike "victory" and mache "battle"
  • Sophokles from sophos "wise, skilled" and kleos "glory"
  • Polykrates from poly "much" and kratos "power"

Did ancient Greeks use these names always, or did they use other nick-names most of the time? My western mind finds it very hard to imagine people saying 'What's up, Victory-Battle? Not too much thanks Skilled-Glory!' Apart from anything else Nikomachos is quite a mouthful.

Do we have any way of knowing this?

CommodoreCoCo

You can find an old discussion on part of your question here. Of course the translated names sound funny in English; we have names that would sound rather silly in other languages if you translated them. Taylor is quite a common first name in English, but Sastre, Spanish for "tailor," is only used as a surname and sounds silly as a first name.