אי שם מעבר לים

Or: Who am I?

I've been driving Aviad, my brother, my parents, Aunt Judy, and lately my friend Mila, crazy with a question that’s been bothering for months: how should I complete the sentence - "Nice to meet you! My name is.." ???

The story is quite complicated, and I apologize to those of you who heard it a million times.

At birth I was given the name Avigal, after the 'Galim' (waves) in Bat Galim, Haifa, where my father grew up. My parents call me Avigal to this day.

For some reason, when we arrived in Israel in 1980, my name was written in all the formal papers as Avigail (my parents don't know how to explain this). So since kindergarden my friends/teachers etc. call me Avigail.

All my family in the States, including my brother, call me Abby. All my family in Israel, mostly from my father’s side, call me Avigal.

Now, since Avigail is an international name, when I first opened an email account in hotmail (..) years ago, I decided to put Abigail as my name on the address. That name went on with me to yahoo! and gmail.

So you tell me, how should I call myself here?!

 Please note:

(1) If I present myself from the start as Abigail or Abby, I might be taken for a 100% American, rachmana litslan.. 

(2) Avigail is hard to pronounce, as I found out when I visited here in March.

(3) Some of my best friends in Israel call me Avigal, the way my parents call me (incidentally, they are not native Hebrew speakers).

(4) I don't know with which name I feel most comfortable with. They're all me.