there are four of me
“cyrus ghahremani” may seem like a one-in-a-million kind of name.
in actuality, it’s four-in-six-billion.
i once received a weird generic customer service letter in the mail, which seemed to be to and from myself, from the toyota dealership i got my car from. i was certain it was just a glitch that put my name as both the recipient and author. turns out this doppelganger cyrus actually works for them. more recently, i’ve received debt collection letters because of this guy’s lousy credit. it’s too much of a coincidence - i am actually fairly certain that he’s stolen my identity.
the second doppelganger was the first i became aware of. before i had any sort of internet presence, i remember searching for my name on yahoo or altavista or whatever search engine was popular in 1995. he was all that came up. he’d filed a patent and seems to live a quiet life in southeast germany. i have no other info about him.
the ultimate cyrus ghahremani goes the furthest back in history. his translated name is “siroos”, which is the traditional phonetic pronunciation of mine. he was infamous in 1960s iran for being a strangely bestial bodybuilder who dabbled in film acting and had his own zoo (of “skinny malnourished animals caught in small cages”). my parents deny having any idea who he was, but i hope i was named after him. more info and pictures here. look at this guy! my hero.
