Post #30: What to call a grandparent?
- Nana Beryl Jupiter
- Aug 23, 2020
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 9, 2020
When my daughter became pregnant, some friends asked me, “What will your grandchild call you?” Not particularly focusing on my grandmother name in the excitement of just knowing I would become one, I initially replied, “Maybe Stacy will choose the name.”
“No,” insisted some friends, “you get to choose.”
So at that point I began giving some serious consideration to my grandmother name, first thinking about what I called the grandparents in my own family. Both sets of my grandparents were either grandmom or mom-mom and grandpop or pop-pop. My parents first became grandparents with the birth of our daughter Stacy. With neither of my grandfathers still alive, we continued the male family tradition and called my father Pop-pop, which worked well for him.
Regarding grandmothers, my father’s mother, Mom-mom Stella, was still among us, a traditional grandmother to 12 grandchildren. Stacy was her first great-grandchild.
And on my husband Jesse’s side, his mother was already very much Grandma Miriam to her daughter Barbara’s two young children.
But my mother was about to become a grandmother at only 47 years old, an age at which she decidedly did not at all look or feel grandmotherly.
Initially seeking a grandmother moniker that was in line with her fashion sense, my mother suggested a French-accented Grand-mamá. But I quickly nixed that for potential pronunciation difficulties. So my mother went with the opposite, coming up with Granny, conjuring up a little old granny but essentially diametrically opposed to how she felt. And it stuck! Even when our toddling son, her second grandchild, mispronounced Granny as “Grugry.” Of course, I realized that some adults think children’s mispronunciations are cute or fun, allowing the grandchild’s mispoken result to replace the originally intended grandparent name, albeit with some strange results. I may have thought “Grugry” was temporarily funny but not for the long haul, and thus persisted in correcting Benjy and preserving Granny’s self-selected name.
Thus my mother continued to be Granny with births over 20 more years of five additional grandchildren, kids of my sister and brother, until she was indeed somewhat more grandmotherly. (My sister and brother would likely say she never really adopted the grandmother role at all, but that’s another story).
So back to me. I didn’t see myself as mom-mom, grandmom, grandma or granny, as they were too much identified with the other grandmothers of our family. Eventually, I focused on Nana, perhaps because I have no Nana relatives. It also sounded sweet, endearing and easily pronounceable. And being quite the dog person, I had a very pleasant recollection of Nana, the St. Bernard nursemaid in the beloved classic Peter Pan story. So that settled it. And the rest has been recent history, while also contributing to the charming title of my blog Finally Nana.
Of note, Jesse had no particular preference for his grandfather name, which evolved from Grandpa into Papa, essentially because Papa flows comfortably after Nana. So neatly that our grandson Cooper initially heard Nana&Papa as a one-word reference to either of us. We have that corrected now.
In writing my blog, I began wondering what other grandparents tend to be called these days. To involve my readers, I sent a simple email inquiry to many subscribers and friends of FinallyNana, asking two questions:
1. What does/do your grandchild(ren) call you?
2. How was that grandparent name chosen or agreed upon?
I was pleased to receive about 70 responses. Many included more extensive information, such as the grandparent names of their spouse, parents and grandparents, and their origins. It’s not a scientific study, but there’s been lots of anecdotal data to compile.
To begin, here are the Nana details. Six contemporary grandmothers are also called Nana. At least three of them picked Nana because they followed the tradition of their grandmothers being Nanas.
Three other grandmothers mentioned already having Nanas in their family and not wanting to repeat the Nana name, and explained why:
“We needed to change it up!”
“I had my Nana growing up, she was so special and unique so it didn’t fit being called Nana.”
“My parents were Nana and Papa to our kids. So we thought we’d not use those names and keep them special.”
And one grandfather wrote, “My best grandmother, my mother’s mother, was my nana!”
I certainly feel like I am among a long line of special Nanas.
Only three other grandfathers are being called Papa like Jesse. Upon becoming a grandmother, my college roommate Susie made sure her husband was called Papa because she adored her own Papa (grandfather) and wanted her husband to be named after him. Another is Papa so not to be confused with his grandchildren’s other Grandpa. And the third is Papa M (first letter of his last name), also to distinguish him from the grandkids’ other papa.
In regard to other grandparents in my family, I grew up in the Philadelphia area where both sets of my grandparents lived as well. Interestingly, the five grandparents who were identified as mom-mom or pop-pop have Philadelphia connections. Not surprisingly, one of the two pop-pops is my cousin Jeff, with whom we shared Pop-pop Lou. Mom-mom Margie, who grew up in Philly, loves the name, having repeated “mom-mom” chosen by her mother when her first child was born. Alternatively, we called my grandmother Grandmom, and Wileen from the same area wrote, "I am Grandmom because that is what I called my grandmother, and that is what my children called my mother."
Like my son had mispronounced Granny as Grugry to my disliking, Grandma Felice’s first grandchild incorrectly called her Grrrrr. “Not quite so adorable,” she noted, “so we all kept working on Grandma until she could pronounce it.” Yet Susie recalled that her own mother, who had wanted to be Granny, was called GaGa by her first grandchild, which eventually became Goggy. Similarly, another friend recalled, that even though her two older siblings called their grandmother Grandma, she “couldn’t say it correctly and called her Gambo – and that stuck!”
More often than not, it seems, grandchildren’s mispronunciations are found to be cute enough to keep them. Here are some funny and interesting ones:
Our cousin Claudia was hoping to be called Dama, a sweet abbreviation for Dad’s Mom. While she was still convincing her son and daughter-in-law about that, her grandson Patrick began calling her Gom, which fast became her grandmother name.
Similarly, Claudia’s own son had come up with the name for his grandfather George, who became Bob to Jonathan throughout his life.
Patty originally wanted to be called grandma because she wanted to carry on the tradition of her mom’s being called grandma to her own children. But when her first granddaughter was born, “she tried her very best to say grandma but could not pronounce her G so it came out Rara.” Three more granddaughters later the Rara has persisted.
Leigh is Ebow, but “wanted to be Leigh Leigh, and was even prepared to be called Wee Wee for a while. Although I personally would never have agreed to that, Leigh wrote, “I certainly knew what wee-wee could mean but my philosophy always is that I don’t care what they call me as long as they call me.” Spoken like a devoted grandmother.
Bettie started out as Bettie-B, like her grandmother, but thanks to her second grandchild, granddaughter Willow, she is now Bee-toe Bee.
Fe is Dama, “since a couple of the kids had trouble saying the letter R.”
Linda reluctantly told me that she is called Mame, pronounced Mammy, which she felt awkward about because of the association with mammies of the old south, especially in today’s climate of racial concerns. Said Linda, “I wanted to have the same name my mother was called. My oldest niece could not pronounce grandmother, so she is the one who named her grandmothers Mame. It’s my family’s tradition which has nothing to do with the south but came about because it was hard to say grandma.”
Ivy is called Bada, originating from her Skype-ing regularly with her distant first grandchild. So when granddaughter Piper often pointed to the computer screen and said what sounded like Bada to her parents, they finally figured out to call her grandmother. “Piper jumped with excitement,” noted Ivy, and Bada stuck as her two grandsons came along. Ivy’s husband is called Bapa, with no explanation. But Bada and Bapa certainly sound like a matched pair. Bada-boom!
My college friend Laura wanted to be called Lolly because that was the nickname her mother had called her, short for Lollipop. Not being able to pronounce Lolly, her grandson called her YaYa, which happens to be Greek for grandmother. Even though Laura is not Greek, she went along with YaYa.
Grandchildren of Bruce started calling him Paka because they had trouble saying Grandpa. And Tom had his grandchildren call him Pappen because that’s what he called his grandfather, likely derived from the first grandchild’s mispronunciation.
Two other grandfathers chose very distinctive names. Mark chose Mosey because it was his father Maurice’s nickname by his buddies. “I always liked the nickname,” said Mark, “and it seemed to go along with Grancy,” his wife’s grandmother name. When impending grandfather Andy saw the ultrasound of his first grandchild, he said it looked like a tadpole. So he became Grand Taddy which eventually got shortened to GT.
With much less fanfare, the most popular grandmother name in the replies is indeed Grandma, like Jesse’s mother and sister.
Sixteen respondents are called that, a few in conjunction with their first or last name to distinguish them from other grandmas in the family. My cousin Roni became Grandma Pouches because every time she visited her nearby grandkids, she brought along a GoGo squeeze pouch. Similarly, Elise wanted to become Grandma but actually became Grandma Nana because she always brought a banana bread to her grandson. There were several variants of Grandma: six named Grammy/Gramie, one Gramma and one Gamma. There were two cute combos: Grancy for grandmother Nancy and Grandi for Grandma Didi.
Five grandfathers are called grandpa, commonly in tandem with their spouses being grandma, and one with his last name added. In explaining the grandpa/grandma choice, one grandpa said, “We chose those names because that’s what we called our grandparents.”
Grandpa also has several variations, some chosen to repeat the name of a favorite family grandfather and others chosen to be intentionally different from the grandfathers of their families. I counted Pop (3), Poppy/i (2), Gramps (2), Grampy (2), Pa (1), Granddad (1) and Grandy (1). One Pop got his name, wrote his responding Nana wife, “because every time we would FaceTime the grand-babies he would put his finger inside his cheek and make a popping sound.” One Poppy repeated the name his father was called to his kids (combined with his wife being Grammy, his mother’s name). One Gramps wrote, “My father was Gramps and I just liked it … reminds me of him.” Another grandfather wrote, “I’m Grampy because that’s what I called both of my grandfathers. And there’s nothing better than the sound of my granddaughters calling Grampy at the top of their lungs!” One intended Grandpa became Pa when his first granddaughter called him that. He “thought it was adorable and grabbed it.”
Mimi and Gigi were the most common alternative grandmother names. Of the five Mimi’s, Andrea chose it for two reasons: “I wanted something they could say when they were starting to talk, and Mimi is often a southern grandmother name and I was living in Florida.” My cousin Leslee wrote, “I heard a friend being called Mimi by her grandkids and liked it.”
And recently, I heard Meryl Streep being interviewed on a Today show segment, and she said her grandchild calls her Mimi.
Of the four Gigi’s, one is my sister Carol, who chose the name in consultation with her son as he became a father. Another Gigi wrote, “My friend said babies say Gigi really, really early and it is easy.”
One flamboyant grandmother explained the curious evolution of becoming a Gigi:
“My sister suggested that my soon-to-be-born grandson call me Chuchi - the nickname my sister had given me when she was learning to talk (and still calls me!) As he began to speak, Chuchi quickly became Chi-Chi and my grandmother name was solidified. Some years later, laughing hysterically, a friend pointed out that in Spanish, Chi-Chi is slang for breasts! So shortly thereafter the older boys shortened it to Cheech. Finally, my teen grandsons have gently steered younger ones to calling me Gigi.”
Several grandmothers are just called by their first names or nicknames: Kathy, Suz, Judy, JuJu (for another Judi) and Lala (for Laurie). This is what they said:
“They all call me Suz. All of our daughter’ friends called me that and it stuck!”
“They call me Kathy much to the surprise for those outside the family. That was their [her kids] choice. Back story – my parents were always called Kay and Ray by their kids and our kids. My mother was hardly a ‘grandma’ [Nana Beryl can relate to that with an un-grandmotherly mother who surprisingly became Granny]. Not sure why all decided on Kathy for me, but I always said I did not care what the grandkids called me as long as they called me,” she added, echoing Ebow Leigh’s sentiments.
Laurie chose LaLa, a nickname her mother used to call her.
Some grandparents chose a name of their cultural or international heritage. Four grandmothers and five grandfathers (including two married couples) have Yiddush names in a variety of spellings: Bubby/Bubbe/Bubbie for grandmothers and Zaidy/Zaide/Zaidie/Zayda/Zadie for grandfathers. One grandfather, whose wife is Grandmom, is called the Hebrew name Saba.
Meanwhile, Zaidie’s wife Heather explained her alternative choice of Savta, the Hebrew name for grandmother: “Our children had Bubi and Zaidie growing up as did we. My husband wanted to continue the tradition. But I felt Bubi was a throwback to a different era. I never knew if Bubby or Bubbie or Bubi was the correct spelling. And sometimes it was peculiarly pronounced Boobie. Having spent time in Israel in my youth, I always try to use modern Hebrew pronunciation. And Savta is easy to spell and pronounce.” Certainly, Heather was right about the English spelling varieties of a Yiddush-inspired name.
Explaining the international names of her family, Grandmother Frances said her kids called her mother Ajji and her dad Ajja from Marathi, the language her mother learned as a child in India where her mother was born (but not of native Indian background). Frances daughter’s family decided to call their grandparents Oma and Opa (German names), but her son’s family alternatively chose Gramma and Granddad.
Less complicated, Grandmother Vivian chose Nonna to reflect her Italian heritage. And my cousin’s wife who is of Greek background is indeed called YiaYia to her grandchildren, just as Maria’s children call her mother YiaYia.
So today’s grandparents’ names may follow tradition or change it, and may be picked by the grandparents, their children, or inadvertently by mispronouncing grandchildren. There may be no consensus on their grandparent names, but all seem happy to be grandparents no matter what they are called. So to borrow from Shakespeare's line about roses, grandparents by any other names would love their grandchildren just the same.
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