For those of you who've heard/read my name and wondered about its origins, Wikipedia has a little entry on it - Doukas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Here are a couple of extracts...
"Doukas or Ducas is the name of a Byzantine family allegedly descended from a cousin of the Roman Emperor Constantine I who had migrated to Constantinople in the 4th century. The family or families using this surname supplied several rulers to the Byzantine Empire...
Doukas or Ducas (fl. 15th century), Byzantine historian, flourished under Constantine XI Dragases, the last emperor of the East, about 1450...
After the fall of Constantinople, he was employed in various diplomatic missions by Dorino and Domenico Gattilusio, princes of Lesbos, where he had taken refuge. He was successful in securing a semi-independence for Lesbos until 1462, when it was taken and annexed to the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Dynasty...
The history of Doukas [...] is the most valuable source for the closing years of the Byzabtine empire. The account of the Fall of Constantinople is of special importance. Doukas was a strong supporter of the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and is very bitter against those who rejected even the idea of appealing to the West for assistance against the Ottomans."
Lesbos is a Greek island in the northeastern Aegean. My father was born in its capital Mytilene and I was named after his father Doukas Frazeskos.
Even in Greece, however, Ducas is still very uncommon as a first name. In fact, I had many heated arguments with Greek taxi drivers who insisted that I was telling them my surname when they were asking for my first.