Who is Jeremy Stevens – I am JEREMY STEVENS!!!!
That’s true; for almost 7 months I spoke as Jeremy Stevens would. I created the name & persona (if you humour me) of Jeremy on December 29th 2002, while at home during a break from my training sessions at Aysha Infotech. I had joined the company as a Call Center Executive in July of that year & we had training for the same. The company never took off, the building of the complex halted in February 2003 and the whole project fell through by May.
I came back to Cochin and joined Aspinwall’s Call Center in June, trying to sell credit cards, cell phones & long distant phone lines to Americans. As a rule, we have to have a pseudo-name which will be easier for American ears to hear & American tongues to pronounce.
I had thought of several names but none seemed to last long. Until, that is, I came up with Jeremy. Taken after the huge 1992 hit single, JEREMY by my favs Pearl Jam, I got the surname by giving an S to my second choice of name – Steven. Hence Jeremy Stevens was born. I occasionally tried using Jeff Stevens when in the Call Center, but stopped it when people started saying “Jess? That’s a girl’s name!!!
One lady & I even had a laughing fit when she told me that she had thought I was playing a prank on her – She had heard the name as Cat Stevens!!! So despite a small deviation, it was Jeremy all the way, until I left that job.
I have come across a “Jeremy Stevens”, who is a producer, in the credits of the hit sit-com Everybody Loves Raymond. I doubt if that is how the name came to me in the middle of the night. Also, more to my pleasing, is the hit series Ed
in which actor Tom Cavanaugh’s character’s full name is Ed Jeremy Stevens. There is a Jeremy Stevenson, a retired ice hockey player who used to suit up for the Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars, Anaheim Mighty Ducks & Minnesota Wild.