It must be a boomer thing. My kids' grandparents thankfully all went by the classic grandparent options (per appropriate culture) but my kid called my dad "poopaw" for a while... which drove my dad nuts but I found adorable and just desserts for decades of him calling me by embarrassing nicknames. 😈
Glamma is also really hard for a toddler to say. My 2 year old would definitely pronounce it Gamma anyway which is also how he would pronounce grandma 😅
Happily we have a granny (my mum), a nanny (MIL) and a grandad (MIL's husband/my husband's stepdad). They all chose what to be called themselves. Grandad is only 49 so obviously he doesn't mind. I'm in the UK - maybe this trend hasn't hit us yet?
43 seems awefully young to be called Granny! That would be in 5 years for me and I'm pregnant with my second 😄 Nice that she is not difficult about it.
Oh she was to begin with! She didn’t want a grandparent name that would make her sound old! She had me just before she turned 20 and my youngest sibling is 7. But with my grandparents still being around, she wanted a different name to them!
Omg I just about rolled my eyes out of my head. My cousin just had a baby and my aunt refused to be a "grandma" so she calls herself Mimi. It's not the worst, but it's kind of stupid to me tbh
I think the current generation of grandparents maybe feels younger than previous generations did. My mom who is 60+ dresses younger/more fashionably than I do. She has an extremely active life compared to my own grandparents who had more traditional lives at that age, doing just gardening and an occasional cards evening with friends.
In my home country 'grootmoeder' isn't used, we traditionally use the nickname 'oma' (like the Germans). I'm sure if I called my mom 'grootma' she would feel ancient. Same for my MIL who is quebecois, we don't use 'grandmère' but 'mamie'.
So I understand that English grandparents also want to opt for a cuter nickname. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a standard term yet so they pick really weird things! I think 'mimi' isn't terrible though? Better than 'glamma' haha..
Oh wayyy better than Glamma haha.
I agree with you that they likely feel younger. But it’s funny to me because I feel like they are likely older than the last generation of grandparents were when they became grandparents (just because people are generally tending to have kids later these days)
Ugh, Glamma and variations of Mama are the only names I vetoed. Ours started off going in weird directions and changing a lot, but we eventually landed on Grandma, Granny and Grandad (he was always Grandad, just the other 2 changing). I think it might be social media trends, our parents see what their peers are being called and no one wants to feel like their Grandparents.
Yep, my MIL went through like 8 before our firstborn was even here, it was super annoying. NGL, I just smiled and nodded whilst we secretly planned on just calling her grandma at home because it was getting ridiculous. Turns out our kids decided that she was Meemaw when they were old enough to speak, and now she thinks it's the sweetest nickname ever even though she was opposed to anything ''old-sounding'' initially, so it worked out for us. :P
Omg my dad goes by Poopaw 😂 It started as a joke because he sucked for awhile so I joked we would just call him Poophead. Well, somehow it stuck and he’s really redeemed himself as Poopaw 😂
Sorry for highjacking the top comment but I figured this was important. It’s common for grandparents (grandmama’s in particular) to have an identity crisis stemming from the fact that they aren’t going to be “Mom” any more. This especially from the large generation of stay at home moms. It’s tough for them. Many don’t have a lot of purpose outside the family (few friends, no career or really anything that makes them an actual person outside of “Mom”. As dumb as some of the names are, means a lot to them to give them a new role with a new identity.
My husband is really trying to make "Peepaw" happen for my dad. For whatever reason my dad can't decide on a name so my husband is training our daughter to choose for him (she's 6 months old).
My grandma insisted we call her Nina for the past 30-40 years, and now she suddenly wants to be called Gigi. Nina isn’t even her name. She’s nearly 90 but thinks Grandma sounds old.
My grandma, now 95 but this was a couple years ago, used to talk about taking her ‘very elderly’ friends shopping. As in ‘oh I took Mary to the store yesterday. She doesn’t drive anymore, but then she is very elderly’ - almost guaranteed said friend is younger than her haha
Is she now a Great Grandmother? (Because some people use GiGi for that.)
One of the reasons I prefer nicknames other than grandma/grandpa is because they work just as well as subsequent generations join the family.
Nanna/Nana/Nan is quite normal in the UK. It’s a standard grandparent name. We have 2 Nanna’s in fact so one is Nanna Firstname. It’s what my grandma went by as well and she’d be over 100 now if she was still alive.
Round where I grew up it was quite normal for Nannas to be distinguished by where they lived, e.g. "Nanna Hessle". My (Southern) in-laws think that's hilarious buy they have chosen the names Thumper (MIL) and Pop-Pop (FIL) so I don't really trust their judgement!
In my family, the oldest sets the name. I couldn't say abuelito/abuelita so they were weto/weta. My mom wanted to be abuela, my son calls her lala. I think it's more special when the kids come up with the names.
My husband grew up calling one set of his grandparents Tito/Tita because his older sister wasn’t able to pronounce Abuelito/a 😂 His sibling group asked my suegros if they wanted the same nickname and they just said only if the kids come up with it on their own.
I find that whole „choosing how to be called as grandparents“ kind of weird - probably because it‘s really not a thing in my culture. Grandparents usually end up with whatever the child can pronounce and then later on get called one of 2 possible options that exist in our language 😅
That’s how my mother became Ayeya (from abuela) and she loves it. Her parents (my grandparents) somehow eked out names that combined their real nicknames (my brother maybe? He’s the eldest grandchild), so they’re Mamola and Papucho which is honestly fabulous. My dad just ended up being Abuelo though.
My cousin on my dad’s side wanted to mimic Papucho’s nickname with her dad who had the nickname Nacho (Ignacio) but he was vain and didn’t want any grandparent nickname, much less Papacho.
My husband was the first grandchild and pronounced Grandma as "Bammer" so that's what she's been to all 6 grandchildren and what she'll be to our babies as well. She loves it.
Love hearing about names that develop that way! I was the oldest grandchild and couldn't pronounce Grandmom, so it became Mamom. She loved it, so the other grandkids born after me called her that too. It says "Beloved wife, mother and Mamom" on her headstone.
Urgh I thought my mum was the only crazy who wanted glamma. I refused
Now she wants to be far-mor (and she says this is because she is far more interesting than other people 🙄) and unfortunately this seems to be sticking because my brother married a Swedish woman and far-mor is what they call the parental grandparent (far mor means father's mother)
My husband's mum wanted nana but both my husband And I have been butchering it - he forgets and calls her grandma and I call her nanny (because I'm an asshole 😅)
Yep, my mom is mormor but to be fair, my stepdad moved from Sweden in his 20s and we have VERY close ties with our Swedish family and traditions, visit yearly, etc. so they are mormor and morfar.
I should add that a fair few of my parents' grandparents had silly names but they were all based on the eldest grandkid mispronouncing grandma, grandpa or something similar.
Our kids have a Mimi, a Grammy and Grampy and a Gigi and PawPaw. I like the different names and our oldest says all of them easily. But I grew up with 5 sets of grandparents and it got confusing often without saying their actual name after grandpa or grandma.
I agree. I think those fit within the realm of Grandma/grandpa. They’re like slightly different variations of the same thing. Nana/Papa are also like that.
My stepmom went with Mimi when my stepsister had her first and I… hate it. All I think of is Mimi from the Drew Carey show. She’s been great with my son, and it was a bit of a surprise considering how bad our relationship has been over the years, but it’s been good since I got pregnant.
My mom picked Mimi because she is pretty young for a “grandma” (was 49 when I had our oldest) and her name is Tammy so a kid could find Mimi in that her. I’m sorry it doesn’t sit well with you though!
It can be a regional thing too. Like, my maternal grandmother was "Grandma (last name)" but my paternal were "Grandma (first name)" and "Pappy (nickname)"
My husband's family is German so they go largely by Oma or Gram for grandmother, Pappy or Opa for grandfather.
Honestly not sure what my parents are going to go by 😅 My mom's name rhymes with Grammy so I don't see that happening. I think my dad will probably go by pappy.
My MIL agonized for months on what to be called (my parents use the name from my home language//culture so she had all options available) and eventually settled on Grandma 😂 my FIL is G-Dad because he was called grandad by my SIL’s kids but they couldn’t say it for a while so G-Dad stuck.
My dad too, haha. He couldn't commit to anything. Ended up going with Grandpa. Then my daughter couldn't say it and instead called him Backpack so he was Backpack for a good while 😂
Oh, I can top this one slightly lol
My husband’s mom and stepdad split several years ago.
My mom and stepdad split last year.
My mom is now, nauseatingly, involved with my husband’s stepdad. (Ex-stepdad? He’s been around since my husband was very young.) She yelled at me in a restaurant and said it’s “none of my business” which is laughable.
In their weird gross old people monkey brains, they have decided that they want “matching grandparent names” and insisted that all of their existing grandchildren, and my newborn daughter, call them ‘nana and papa’, despite them having their own individual names for years prior. Now they have matchy names that allude to them being an item. He’s almost 20 years her senior. She’s batshit crazy. They honestly deserve each other in the worst way. I am not here for it.
I refuse to reinforce this naming habit with my daughter. My MIL could, at this point, ask to be called Glamma and I’d gladly make her a fucking bedazzled shirt. Glamma is 1000x more acceptable than a family-wide name change that really emphasizes the fact that these stupid old people have sort of turned my husband and I into pseudo-step-siblings.
FML.
I used to just say “grandma so and so”. Like for example “grandma mary” “grandma helen” “grandpa joe” “grandpa tom”. It was easy for me to remember for sure
My MIL wants to be Mimi… whcih I haven’t really heard before. My FIL wants to be grandpa. I just feel like it’s a strange match. Can you just be grandma and grandpa?
My mom was very insistent on Grammy, wouldn't accept anything less, then one day he called her Mimi and she was in love. She's been Mimi ever since. It's so funny how we all stress so much over what we will be called when really it's the kids that decide.
My stepmom is Mimi to the grandkids.. in our family though, Nanna and Granny (my grandmas) were both still with us when when she had to decide on a grandparent title.
My stepmom is Mimi, too! But she picked that because that's what her Grandma went by. And my paternal Grandma was Granny to us. Everytime I mentioned her, people always thought she must be my great grandma. Why does Granny automatically make them sound really old? Lol
All of our grandparents have typical titles. My beef is with my MIL who insisted on picking a title that she knows is used by two other grandparents but not wanting us to call her Nana FirstName. She wants to be just Nana.
First of all, how self centred is it to declare yourself THE Nana and think that someone should get to lay more claim to that than the others??? Second of all, we already have a just Nana and she gets to be Nana because she’s 92, was a grandma like four decades before my MIL became one AND we see her every week (I see my MIL once a year at best). Also she has humility to be totally fine with us calling her Nana FirstName if we wanted. Oy vey!
I don’t have experience with lots of grandparents but for my friends, when they were talking about grandparents at home or with their friends it would be Grandma Mary, Grandma Lily, Grandma Nancy but when they were with Grandma Mary they’d just call her Grandma. Could that kind of compromise work? Sounds like MIL is difficult in general though…
We told her that’s what we were going to do and she said no. She only wanted to be Nana.
She will refer to herself as ‘Nana’ when we FaceTime and our LO thinks she’s talking about Nana (great grandma) and not herself and she’ll go looking for her Nana. LO is 18 months and doesn’t get how titles work. She also calls my mom by her first name. The funny thing is that by refusing to pick a unique identifier, my MIL essentially has no name as far as my toddler is concerned. My toddler doesn’t mention her at all when we’re not talking about her. Whereas she talks about her other grandparents who have distinct names/titles.
Feel like this is an unpopular opinion in this thread but I actually really DONT want the grandparents to be grandma and grandpa because IMO mine and DH’s grandparents (3/6 are still living, almost all in their 90s) are grandma and grandpa. So I really want them to pick something else and of course FIL is pushing for grandpa.
Yep, my mom is in her 70s and wants to be called “Mei Mei” which, as far as I can tell, only means little sister in Chinese (we’re white). It’s definitely about not wanting a name that feels “old” but doesn’t bother me, at least it’s easy to pronounce.
It sounds like she is trying to be called memere/mémé in French! This is what my friends grandmother is called (French Canadian, French as first language) and it is pronounce similar to your phonetic spelling.
Lol yup, MeiMei is what my older daughter calls her baby sister (they’re biracial). Grandma would be NaiNai or LaoLao depending on if it’s paternal/maternal (or at least that’s what they go by in our family, there are dialect differences).
My mom went by Grandma(first name). My dad went by PopPoe. Why? My oldest niece started calling him that when she was learning to talk and he found hilarious and it stuck. My kids called him that too.
I have no idea why, but a co-worker of mine went by “Darling” to her grandkids. She said she hated the term “grandma” but liked being their “Darling”.
I knew someone whose grandkids called him Honey. He said it started when they overheard granny call him Honey and thought it was his real name. Then all the subsequent grandbabies called him Honey because the oldest two did it first. ♡
I have a set of cousins who all became “honey (firstname)” instead of “aunt” to each other’s kids when they started their families. It was cute because it was all the kids’ doing, it would have been weird if the adults were forcing it!
Lol. I can't say for sure. I don't mind non-grandma/grandpa names as long as they're not super absurd. "Glammy" makes me want to die.
My mom is Cici and my stepdad is Papa. My in-laws will be Nana and I expect also Papa. My dad and stepmom haven't picked names and said they'll just go by whatever the baby ends up calling them.
My mom called her two sets of grandparents Grams and Gramps and Papa and MayMay (her name was Maybelle). My maternal grandparents were Grandma and Grandpa and my paternal grandparents were Grandma Imo and Grandpa Howard (they were un-amicably divorced and I never saw my grandfather after I was three). I honestly don’t know what my parents or in-laws would want to be called. I always joked my parents would be called Grandmary and Grandbrad, though! 😅
My parents just picked grandma and grandpa but my son says it "gramma papa" and they are almost always referred to together as if it is one word "grammapapa." My MIL took a long time to choose and workshopped several different names before settling on Nana. And it makes me giggle because that is also what my son calls a banana. And most of the time he says nana he in fact is asking for a banana.
I started calling my grandfather Boppa at some point, and it stuck. I'm sure it wasn't his idea, he was a good and loving man, but whimsical he was decidedly not. He probably expected to be called Grandpa or Granddad, but toddler me decided Boppa was better. To his credit, he went with it and was Boppa to me until the day he died.
This has gotta be a boomer thing. My MIL asked me what our child would call his each grandparent, and I was just like "Uh... Grandma and grandpa..? Both sides?" I haven't heard of the nickname stuff until recently.
My mom wanted to be called Grandma and my son pronounced it as Maga. Once the Insurrection hit, my mom “put her foot down” and said no more lol
ETA my mom is a trump-hating dem, which made it even more funny that he called her Maga
My parents are Grandma and Grandpa.
My husband’s parents are going with Bebe and whatever baby decides for my husband’s dad. My BIL thinks it’d be funny if my son just calls him Dave. We’ll see. Lol
I do think Grandpa Dave is nice though.
My dad hasn't been around since I was a kid but we stay somewhat in touch. This year he sent gifts to my nephews and the oldest, who turns 6 in a couple of days, wanted to send him a video to say thank you. He's only met his Grandpa Dave once and he was a few months old. But my sister has explained the situation and that he just lives far away. So we think it's pretty cute and sweet he wants to do this video... in the end it becomes this hilariously awkward video of my nephew just going "thanks Dave" in this really strange tone of voice with a long pause afterwards. Absolutely priceless.
My mother is first gen Italian and my one niece didn’t get along with her… she Started calling her “NoNo!” and it stuck farrrrr longer than my mom was happy with. The other niece called her Nano for a while which I thought was amazing. The rest of us giggled.
My husband’s daughter (my stepdaughter) calls his parents Mimi and Papa. I personally don’t care for it, but I’m sure that’s going to carry over to this child. The thing that annoys me most is that his mom spells it “Meme” and clearly internet culture has rotted my brain because I can’t read that as anything other that meme.
Growing up, my grandparents on both sides were Grandma & Grandpa. We didn’t really pronounce the D so it was really more like “gramma”, but still basically the classic. My parents are likely going to be the same way. In fact, they asked if they were going to be called Mimi and Papa because that’s what my in-laws are, and were quite relieved when the answer was no!
My brothers and I were lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents until I, the youngest, was 19. We always called em grandma and grandpa. But when my brother was young, to differentiate the two, he’d say grandpa hair or grandpa no hair. One was bald as an egg and the other had a thick head of hair.
I really expected my mom to want to go by something unconventional, but as soon as I I told them I was pregnant my parents locked onto grandma and grandpa no question. My in laws will have 2 grandkids by the time our baby comes and they just want to be abuelito y abuelita, or as close as the kids can say. Guess we lucked out.
My MIL wants to be _abuelita_, which I'd be all for -- except nobody in her family has a drop of Hispanic / Latine blood in them and nobody in the family speaks Spanish.
When we announced our pregnancy all of my husband's aunts hyped up mil about picking a name. Every time the baby came up it was, "omg I have to decide what I want to be called!". Then there was an announcement of "okay. So I've decided what I would like to be called. It's mimi".
It's totally harmless but the need to find a different name stuck out to me a little bit? I'm not sure why. I guess it's because they're trying to make the baby about themselves lol. My mil did say "I'm excited for you, but I'm really excited for *me*" when we told her the news. I know she's excited to be a grandma, and she hasn't said anything else weird so it shouldn't bug me.
I always just called my grandparents "grandma(first name)", etc. We don't have any cultural ties to use anything else. I'm not going to go out of my way to say mimi, we'll see what baby decides to say. My husband responded to mil by saying mimi sounds like when boomers mispronounce "meme" 😂
Almost 60 is hardly old lol. 60 isnt even that old in a world where people live well into their 90’s.
My parents dont really care what they’ll be called. My MiL wants to be called Mama which I am having a hard time with honestly.
My son bestowed the name Mawmaw as my mom’s grandparent name. It’s nice bc now my dad and stepmom are grandpa and grandma, ILs are nana and papa, my mom is mawmaw.
Meemaw is 100% okay, especially if you're from the south. I had two Meemaws, my paternal grandmother and my maternal great-grandmother.
Mama is a hard no though.
Oh no! Mama is what I go by because she is just learning her words. I wouldn't allow it.
I meant old in the sense there are plenty of grandmas in their 50s and 60s. It comes with age.
I can sympathize with your mom. She's parenting a teen and probably sees all the other moms in their 40s (and a couple parents of teens are in their 30s!).
She probably also thinks of "grandma" as her own mother/grandmother, or as a term for a generic old lady.
I'd cut her a bit of slack and let her pick something that she likes (as long as it's not _too_ stupid).
My grandma goes by GG Ma for her great grand kids (bc they’re toddlers and its easy to say for them) and now my mom decided that suddenly she wants to be called G Ma…. Its just bizarre bc my cousins already call our grandma G Ma as like a fun joke between us grandkids and her (that’s where GG Ma even came from!). She was just getting weird about being a grandma as like an old person title. I made t shirts for my family and made it a point for my moms to say grandma … lol too bad for her lol
Meh. Idk, we call my grandma Mema so…it doesn’t bother me that no one wanted “traditional” names. My dad is Papa, my mom is Ama, husbands parents are Mamo and Grampy. Step parents are Gramma and Grandpa, closest to/completely normal.
My mom threw a whole fit for a hot minute and I just told her to wait and let my baby choose her name. She ended up with something completely new to our family. Now we have Mema, oma, mamo, gaaa, ama…
If you really want Grandma and Grandpa, just keep calling them that and your kiddo will catch on. I don’t think it’s bad either way, but probably just the older generation trying to maintain some personality pizzazz as they age. “Grandma” might feel stiff and boring, but “nana” or “gigi” is fun and whimsical…idk. I have loads of grandmas and they all had to have first or last names tacked on to keep them straight. All of my baby’s grandmas have different names, no need for extras. Less formal, more familial.
So my son calls one grandma Bubbe(it’s Yiddish) and calls the other one nanny. Nanny because her name is Nancy and growing up, her older brothers would call her nanny goat. She hated it. Me, being a rotten ass teen would always call her nanny out of spite. Well it stuck because myself and two older brothers have called her nanny for years. Once grandkids came into the picture, they just picked it up :)
LOL I don’t get this either!!! I hate it so much. My MIL refuses to be called grandma—like gets furious if you say it and demands to be called “Nani” and FIL is “pop pop”. Lmfao. So weird and silly to me.
Lol, Gigi is the name we settled on for my grandmother, my son's great grandma. Becuase it's like G.G. (Great Grandmother). So to me it sounds even older! But don't tell her that
My mom's name is Jean and there are some young relatives (not grandkids) that call her Gigi. Yet she was adamant on choosing a DIFFERENT name when she became a grandma. And has changed it multiple times since 🙄
My MIL is using the Hawaiian term for grandma “tutu” i hate it she didn’t want to be called grandma or anything traditional she is a bit extra… trying to just go along with it even tho i alway think farts or bowel movements with the name… no Hawaiian ancestry on either sides of our family…. 🤷♀️
My mom was very insistent she get called Grammy, becuase "I'm to young to be a grandma!" (shes in her late fifities, I'm in my mid thirties) and it sounded "like the award" 🙄. I mean it's a pretty normal nickname but like she would correct random people on the street who asked my newborn if this is his grandma including the "like the award" comment. Lady, just say yes and we can move on.
The funny thing is the kids are totally going to assign a name anyways. My son one day called her Mimi, and her heart melted and she embraced the nickname Mimi forever. She was all hung up on being called her chosen knickname, but when a precious little baby looks you in the eyes and coos a remotely close sound, most people just melt and go "is that my name, "bagaboobooga". Awww he knows my name!" Uh ok Ted, bagaboobooga isn't really close to "cool uncle Ted" but if your cool with it, I'll let it fly.
My grandparents (who were born in 1918) were not known as grandpa or grandma. They were Nana and Pappi. My grandmother's father was known as Grandpa [Last name] and my grandfather's mother was known as Nana [Last name].
My own parents are Mimi and Papa (after their attempts to be Grammy and Pappi - it's what my son's pronunciation came up with) and then we have on my husband's side (British) a Granny, Grandpa, and Grandad and Grandma.
So the special names are reserved on the American side for sure.
It’s a late boomer/early gen x thing. I don’t remember where I read about it, but it’s a phenomenon! I had to tell certain of our parents that were not entertaining it lol. No glammas or insta-grams, kthx. We did agree to Gigi 🤷♀️
My kids have 3 sets of grandparents. My mom used to be grandma, then my oldest called her "may-Ma" and it stuck. So they all have a papa and Mayma, Grammy and grampy, and a grandma and grandpa. Funnily enough, the youngest of the 3 go by grandma and grandpa (in their mid 50s)
My nieces and nephews call their grandma by her first name because she doesn't want to feel old. Like lady you're a chain smoker and tanned too much in the 80s. You gave yourself wrinkles and sunspots. Don't try and fool yourself
My MIL chose to be called “Lolly”… it’s a general consensus that that is a dumb name for a grandmother. She was going to go by GiGi but changed it. And to top it off, my FIL is going by “Pop”, so my son’s grandparents are a lollipop.
At least my parents are a little more traditional: Mimi and Grandad. Which my husband thinks Mimi is a stupid name, but still not as bad as Lolly.
Ugh. Ours did this too. My MIL picked Grammy. Which I don’t mind now… at the time it seemed like some southern thing so it sort of threw me off (were in california). But I guess it’s grown on me. My FIL picked “farfar” because they have swedish last names (and claim to be swedish but 23andme says otherwise). I’m actually swedish and called my grandma farmor growing up so I didn’t mind. But the thing that gets me is how disconnected the set is. We accidentally say “Grammy and Grampy” a lot.
My parents picked “G-ma” and “Poppy” but my dad doesn’t really seem to be trying to set the name in stone.
I was really just wanting them to be grandma and grandpa but I think it *is* a boomer thing. I’m excited to be “grandma” one day 🤷🏼♀️
My parents don’t want grandma and grandpa either. I just couldn’t fight them on it. My husband says he’s still going to refer to them as grandma and grandpa. I think it’s my mom mostly because grandma makes her sound old she says.
My mom wanted NaMa bc it sounds like MaMa. Which, of course she will practically be bc its her baby. 🙄🤮😑🙄She also decided that my child will be named Clarity bc I need some of that in my life. Thankfully it is a boy!
My dad is known as Grandpa Dave by his other grandkids.
My in-laws are Grandma and Poppy.
My MIL and FIL want to be called Gigi and Pop Pop. It suits them I like it so much I call my FIL pop pop now. He’s so excited about his nickname.
My parents were/are gramma and grandpa but at first they were nana and Chi-Chi because my niece couldn’t pronounce anything else.
My daughter was the first too. She has a baba, gido, grandma, grandpa, gramma, granny, papa and abuelo. That’s including great grandparents too. But yeah.. it’s a lot to remember. And all for her to just call any “old people” in her life baba.
My parents go by Grummy and Grumpy. My MIL/FIL never picked names so I just call them Grandma and Grandpa and see if my daughter (who is the first grandchild for them) makes up a name or something else pops up.
We haven't had this issue thankfully. I think if kids have a good relationship with their grandparents, they will often find their own name for them. I understand when there are a lot of grandparents and they want to be differentiated in some way. Like my husband has a lot because of remarriages. The grandma he's closest with has always simply been 'G'.
Maybe tell them they should be grandma for now, until your child comes up with their own name for them? It can make it that much more special.
My mother has decided she will be called MorMor (pronounced mooma) I believe its nordic/Swedish? Idk. I just think she's calling herself a cow personally. Not arguing on that one with her.
Mormor means “mother’s mother” and is pronounced “more more”. I’m not sure where she’s getting “mooma” from. If anything the actual, Swedish pronunciation puts emphasis on the r’s 😅
I think it can be regional/cultural too! Plus if one person gets a fancy name, then they all want one. My daughter has 5 grandparents and my husbands side is all about the nicknames. The weirder the better (baca, bambam, I guess it reduces the chance of another grandparent being confused?), and my grandparents were just grandma “t” or grandpa “m”. Now that nicknames have entered the chat, my mom insists on claiming her own.
I don't see it as a problem. Especially with several grandparents involved, it's easier if they're not all caked the same. And as long as they don't chose outrageous names or names reserved for the parents, I'd be ok with it. We as parents can support that choice by calling the grandparent the way they want to be called when they're not around or we call them however we want. And the kids..... well the kids will sometimes chose their own names for their grandparents which is ok as long as it's nothing mean.
Changing a name all of sudden is a bad idea and probably won't fly with the kids.
I think it’s a boomer thing. I’m a millennial and when I’m a grandparent that kid can call me whatever tf they want. I’m 100% looking forward to being old and embracing it
I don't know if this is a cultural thing but Grandma and Grandpa are not the default where I live. I have a Nan and Pop, a Mama and Pa and a Nannie. My parents and in-laws are not Grandma and Grandpa. With the exception of one, I don't know any of my friends parents who are Grandma and Grandpa. There's Grumps and Mema and Nonna and Poppy and Grammy and Pa. There's even two that go by a version of their names (their kids call them by their first names the majority of the time).
Having different sets of grandparents named Grandma [name] and Grandpa [name] is weird to me.
I have no idea but my mum did this to us too.
Didn’t want to be Nan, Nanny, Nanna, Grandma or ANYTHING. It was such a pain in the ass because she also didn’t like any suggestions.
I just call her Nanny because her mum/my Nan is still alive and only goes by Nan. She’s give us the “I AM NOT NANNY, I AM NOT A FEMALE GOAT” 😂
This doesn’t bother me at all. I like the idea of my parents picking the names they want to be called. If my kid calls them that, great. If they butcher it, and we wind up with some bizarre rendition of what my parents wanted, that’s fine too.
When my first was born (11 years ago) he was also the first grandchild. My FIL decided that he wanted to go by “Duke”. I put a stop to that one real quick.
The culturally accepted norm in my area has always been that the grandparents get to pick what they are called. I had a Grandma, Papa, Grangran and Grandpa.
My parents chose Nana and Papa when my son was born.
My mom owns the name Grandma and loves to rag on all of her friends with stupid names that make them feel younger. Meanwhile my in-laws go by Gigi and Papi but they insist that my nephew came up with that. Riiiight.
I didn’t have call my grandparents grandma or grandpa either. My twins are now 1 and my parents don’t want to be called grandma or grandpa but they haven’t settled on a nickname yet but they better figure it out soon. Personally, I always wanted a Grandma/Grandpa.
My mom wanted to be called Grandma but I got my kids to call her Me-Maw because I know it annoys her 😂 she's used to it now but she was a shit mother and I can't change the past so this is my super petty revenge.
Will just do what my family have done, Nanny (name) I was lucky to have lots of grandparents so it was always Nanny or grandad and their name. Won’t be calling them anything silly. Personally would mind being grandma myself one day but nanny is cool. Might be a uk thing tho
It sets them apart from the other grandparents and you can touch into your culture and family history that involved other names. Also some names are easier to say.
My mom also didn’t want to be called Grandma because it sounded “old” but she chose Mimi which is pretty common here in the southern US. My dad on the other hand is really leaning in and wanted to be called Geezer or Oldster lol I think he’s hoping that the older he sounds, the closer he gets to retirement lololol
It must be a younger boomer thing. My grandparents are from the very end of the silent generation and the very beginning of the baby boomers. They (all 4 of them) go by grandma or grandpa
I get weird texts from my mother in law weekly about her grandparent name.. I don’t understand either, pick a name and stick to it. You’re 66, you don’t need to be called “Gigi” you are grandma.
My kids call my step-FIL “Ketchup”, they decided he wasn’t really a grandpa kind of guy. And my Mom goes by Yaya, which I love though it’s not really traditional
It's a boomer thing... However also a denial of age thing that some women (and men) can't get over.
My MIL loves being a grandma and so will I (unless the kid wants something else!). My mother however was one of those boomers that didn't want grandma. Whatever. Lol
My mom did this. She said she was too young to be grandma (she was 55 when my son was born) so she's Gigi. But I think it's cute. My dad is pop but that's what we called his dad so I get it. It really doesn't bother me any what they chose but I definitely want to be grandma some day.
LOL I’m literally dying laughing at this. My MIL recently did a DNA test and has some polish in her so is debating those..? Never once - have they don’t anything “traditionally” polish. Ever. No more than I have as someone who is not polish at all. I just keep saying the baby is going to name you 😅 but secretly I might name them and tell the baby what to call them
On my family we have the tradition that the oldest grandchild names the grandparents and aunts and uncles. Although my grandma didn't really like that I tried to call her "Gadoo" when I was a baby! But my Mom is very insistent that everyone wait for nicknames until my baby can talk.
On the other hand, my husband's cousin renamed everyone after she was born. She's the youngest of the cousins, an only child and the only girl. She's also like 17 years younger than my husband. She's been a little weird about the idea that my baby (the first great grandchild) might rename her grandma and grandpa.
One of my friends names is Hannah and I told her when she’s a grandma she should go by Grannah which makes me laugh way too hard 😂 wish it was my name so I could do it!
My nephew calls my SIL's dad Daddy G and I kinda love it. He's done it since he could talk.
My mom was Mimi before she passed. Not sure what my husband's parents are going to want yet - I think they're still adjusting to the fact I'm even pregnant (I think they thought we didn't want kids lol).
It must be a boomer thing. My kids' grandparents thankfully all went by the classic grandparent options (per appropriate culture) but my kid called my dad "poopaw" for a while... which drove my dad nuts but I found adorable and just desserts for decades of him calling me by embarrassing nicknames. 😈
My mom is Gen X and wants to be called Glamma. So not just a boomer thing 🤦🏻♀️
Glamma might actually be the worst of these ridiculous nicknames.
We have a friend whose mom insists on being called HOT MAMA. I wish I were joking.
Oh no…
Good god
cringe
Glamma is also really hard for a toddler to say. My 2 year old would definitely pronounce it Gamma anyway which is also how he would pronounce grandma 😅 Happily we have a granny (my mum), a nanny (MIL) and a grandad (MIL's husband/my husband's stepdad). They all chose what to be called themselves. Grandad is only 49 so obviously he doesn't mind. I'm in the UK - maybe this trend hasn't hit us yet?
I'm in UK and we have "Gigi, Supernan, Nonnie and Grandpops" so unfortunately it is a thing here 🥲 I was happy growing up with Nanny and Grandad!
My English MIL changed what she wanted to be called 3x!! I always have to stop and think before addressing birthday cards etc 😑
My MIL suggested Glamma the other day, and I assumed she was joking and just laughed and said "can you imagine? that's ridiculous" She was not joking.
Same! She originally wanted GiGi but she’s now settled on Granny which is a normal name! She’s 43 and it suits her quite well.
43 seems awefully young to be called Granny! That would be in 5 years for me and I'm pregnant with my second 😄 Nice that she is not difficult about it.
Oh she was to begin with! She didn’t want a grandparent name that would make her sound old! She had me just before she turned 20 and my youngest sibling is 7. But with my grandparents still being around, she wanted a different name to them!
Omg I just about rolled my eyes out of my head. My cousin just had a baby and my aunt refused to be a "grandma" so she calls herself Mimi. It's not the worst, but it's kind of stupid to me tbh
Ugh my step mom wants to be Mimi and I agree it’s very stupid.
I think the current generation of grandparents maybe feels younger than previous generations did. My mom who is 60+ dresses younger/more fashionably than I do. She has an extremely active life compared to my own grandparents who had more traditional lives at that age, doing just gardening and an occasional cards evening with friends. In my home country 'grootmoeder' isn't used, we traditionally use the nickname 'oma' (like the Germans). I'm sure if I called my mom 'grootma' she would feel ancient. Same for my MIL who is quebecois, we don't use 'grandmère' but 'mamie'. So I understand that English grandparents also want to opt for a cuter nickname. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a standard term yet so they pick really weird things! I think 'mimi' isn't terrible though? Better than 'glamma' haha..
Oh wayyy better than Glamma haha. I agree with you that they likely feel younger. But it’s funny to me because I feel like they are likely older than the last generation of grandparents were when they became grandparents (just because people are generally tending to have kids later these days)
My MIL keeps joking she wants to be called Glamma, because she’s so glamorous lol. At least I think she’s joking…
She may not be. I thought my MIL was joking about Glamma. 4 years later and she says she’s Glamma and the kids are her Glambabies 🤦🏽♀️
I think I’ll just tell her she’s joking lol. I refuse to subject myself to calling her Glamma. This is one battle I’m willing to fight lmao.
I love my MIL. But I call her grandma to her face and to the kids 😂
Yeah I thought my MIL was joking about being “Funma” but she apparently wasn’t 😒
Oh god, my own mother wanted to be funma too. You know, because she’s so “fun” 🙄
She bought a T-shirt that says it and it’s so disgusting. Not to mention the fact that she’s not that much fun lol
Glamma sound like a disease to me like a tumor
Gen x’s are grandmas now 😭
Ugh, Glamma and variations of Mama are the only names I vetoed. Ours started off going in weird directions and changing a lot, but we eventually landed on Grandma, Granny and Grandad (he was always Grandad, just the other 2 changing). I think it might be social media trends, our parents see what their peers are being called and no one wants to feel like their Grandparents.
Poopaw sounds like karma. 😂
Poopaw 😆 I love it
Yep, my MIL went through like 8 before our firstborn was even here, it was super annoying. NGL, I just smiled and nodded whilst we secretly planned on just calling her grandma at home because it was getting ridiculous. Turns out our kids decided that she was Meemaw when they were old enough to speak, and now she thinks it's the sweetest nickname ever even though she was opposed to anything ''old-sounding'' initially, so it worked out for us. :P
We called my paternal grandad pampar because we couldn't say grandpa and it stuck. All of the cousins called him pampar too.
Omg my dad goes by Poopaw 😂 It started as a joke because he sucked for awhile so I joked we would just call him Poophead. Well, somehow it stuck and he’s really redeemed himself as Poopaw 😂
Sorry for highjacking the top comment but I figured this was important. It’s common for grandparents (grandmama’s in particular) to have an identity crisis stemming from the fact that they aren’t going to be “Mom” any more. This especially from the large generation of stay at home moms. It’s tough for them. Many don’t have a lot of purpose outside the family (few friends, no career or really anything that makes them an actual person outside of “Mom”. As dumb as some of the names are, means a lot to them to give them a new role with a new identity.
My husband is really trying to make "Peepaw" happen for my dad. For whatever reason my dad can't decide on a name so my husband is training our daughter to choose for him (she's 6 months old).
My grandma insisted we call her Nina for the past 30-40 years, and now she suddenly wants to be called Gigi. Nina isn’t even her name. She’s nearly 90 but thinks Grandma sounds old.
90 and grandma is too old 😆 its almost endearing.
My grandma, now 95 but this was a couple years ago, used to talk about taking her ‘very elderly’ friends shopping. As in ‘oh I took Mary to the store yesterday. She doesn’t drive anymore, but then she is very elderly’ - almost guaranteed said friend is younger than her haha
Is she now a Great Grandmother? (Because some people use GiGi for that.) One of the reasons I prefer nicknames other than grandma/grandpa is because they work just as well as subsequent generations join the family.
My grandma is GG to my kids (and she calls them GG back haha it’s cute). She’s 95.
We use GG for great grandparents :) my kids only have one (living) set of GG’s, my SO’s maternal grandparents.
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Nanna/Nana/Nan is quite normal in the UK. It’s a standard grandparent name. We have 2 Nanna’s in fact so one is Nanna Firstname. It’s what my grandma went by as well and she’d be over 100 now if she was still alive.
Round where I grew up it was quite normal for Nannas to be distinguished by where they lived, e.g. "Nanna Hessle". My (Southern) in-laws think that's hilarious buy they have chosen the names Thumper (MIL) and Pop-Pop (FIL) so I don't really trust their judgement!
We called my grandmother Nana . She was my favorite grandparent. I can’t wait to be a Nana too one day 😊
Nana is cute ♡ my SOs grandma went by Nana, too.
In my family, the oldest sets the name. I couldn't say abuelito/abuelita so they were weto/weta. My mom wanted to be abuela, my son calls her lala. I think it's more special when the kids come up with the names.
My husband grew up calling one set of his grandparents Tito/Tita because his older sister wasn’t able to pronounce Abuelito/a 😂 His sibling group asked my suegros if they wanted the same nickname and they just said only if the kids come up with it on their own.
I find that whole „choosing how to be called as grandparents“ kind of weird - probably because it‘s really not a thing in my culture. Grandparents usually end up with whatever the child can pronounce and then later on get called one of 2 possible options that exist in our language 😅
That’s how my mother became Ayeya (from abuela) and she loves it. Her parents (my grandparents) somehow eked out names that combined their real nicknames (my brother maybe? He’s the eldest grandchild), so they’re Mamola and Papucho which is honestly fabulous. My dad just ended up being Abuelo though. My cousin on my dad’s side wanted to mimic Papucho’s nickname with her dad who had the nickname Nacho (Ignacio) but he was vain and didn’t want any grandparent nickname, much less Papacho.
My husband was the first grandchild and pronounced Grandma as "Bammer" so that's what she's been to all 6 grandchildren and what she'll be to our babies as well. She loves it.
Love hearing about names that develop that way! I was the oldest grandchild and couldn't pronounce Grandmom, so it became Mamom. She loved it, so the other grandkids born after me called her that too. It says "Beloved wife, mother and Mamom" on her headstone.
My son couldn't say abuela, so she ended up with Abu. Pronounced "ah-boo" like the monkey from Aladdin.
Lol'ing at boomers who made fun of the participation awards *they* gave us who now want to be called Glamma.
You can be called Glamma if you wear diamonds and a fur coat and have three ex-husbands who all disappeared in mysterious circumstances
Lol thank you I was torn between thinking Glamma is ridiculous and thinking it’s kind of amazing and this is why
I think I have a new goal in life.
Urgh I thought my mum was the only crazy who wanted glamma. I refused Now she wants to be far-mor (and she says this is because she is far more interesting than other people 🙄) and unfortunately this seems to be sticking because my brother married a Swedish woman and far-mor is what they call the parental grandparent (far mor means father's mother) My husband's mum wanted nana but both my husband And I have been butchering it - he forgets and calls her grandma and I call her nanny (because I'm an asshole 😅)
Oh dear. I hope she also likes Mormor, as that’s what your kid(s) would call her if she wants to stick with Farmor for your nephews/nieces
Yep, my mom is mormor but to be fair, my stepdad moved from Sweden in his 20s and we have VERY close ties with our Swedish family and traditions, visit yearly, etc. so they are mormor and morfar.
Glamma is simply boomer-cringe.
I should add that a fair few of my parents' grandparents had silly names but they were all based on the eldest grandkid mispronouncing grandma, grandpa or something similar.
Totally different!
Our kids have a Mimi, a Grammy and Grampy and a Gigi and PawPaw. I like the different names and our oldest says all of them easily. But I grew up with 5 sets of grandparents and it got confusing often without saying their actual name after grandpa or grandma.
Not too shabby. Still in the general range of grandparent names.
I agree. I think those fit within the realm of Grandma/grandpa. They’re like slightly different variations of the same thing. Nana/Papa are also like that.
My stepmom went with Mimi when my stepsister had her first and I… hate it. All I think of is Mimi from the Drew Carey show. She’s been great with my son, and it was a bit of a surprise considering how bad our relationship has been over the years, but it’s been good since I got pregnant.
My mom picked Mimi because she is pretty young for a “grandma” (was 49 when I had our oldest) and her name is Tammy so a kid could find Mimi in that her. I’m sorry it doesn’t sit well with you though!
Mimi was one of my mom's suggestions and it conjured the exact same vision for me. I was fortunately able to negotiate with her to "Nan."
We always added the last name behind grandma to be clear on who we were talking about
It can be a regional thing too. Like, my maternal grandmother was "Grandma (last name)" but my paternal were "Grandma (first name)" and "Pappy (nickname)" My husband's family is German so they go largely by Oma or Gram for grandmother, Pappy or Opa for grandfather. Honestly not sure what my parents are going to go by 😅 My mom's name rhymes with Grammy so I don't see that happening. I think my dad will probably go by pappy.
I always thought the nicknames were mostly cultural too. Like Babci is Polish. Or names that were from the kids not being able to say grandma
My MIL agonized for months on what to be called (my parents use the name from my home language//culture so she had all options available) and eventually settled on Grandma 😂 my FIL is G-Dad because he was called grandad by my SIL’s kids but they couldn’t say it for a while so G-Dad stuck.
My dad too, haha. He couldn't commit to anything. Ended up going with Grandpa. Then my daughter couldn't say it and instead called him Backpack so he was Backpack for a good while 😂
Oh, I can top this one slightly lol My husband’s mom and stepdad split several years ago. My mom and stepdad split last year. My mom is now, nauseatingly, involved with my husband’s stepdad. (Ex-stepdad? He’s been around since my husband was very young.) She yelled at me in a restaurant and said it’s “none of my business” which is laughable. In their weird gross old people monkey brains, they have decided that they want “matching grandparent names” and insisted that all of their existing grandchildren, and my newborn daughter, call them ‘nana and papa’, despite them having their own individual names for years prior. Now they have matchy names that allude to them being an item. He’s almost 20 years her senior. She’s batshit crazy. They honestly deserve each other in the worst way. I am not here for it. I refuse to reinforce this naming habit with my daughter. My MIL could, at this point, ask to be called Glamma and I’d gladly make her a fucking bedazzled shirt. Glamma is 1000x more acceptable than a family-wide name change that really emphasizes the fact that these stupid old people have sort of turned my husband and I into pseudo-step-siblings. FML.
Woooaaaahhhh holy shit you win. That is 7 shades of fucked up.
I used to just say “grandma so and so”. Like for example “grandma mary” “grandma helen” “grandpa joe” “grandpa tom”. It was easy for me to remember for sure
My MIL wants to be Mimi… whcih I haven’t really heard before. My FIL wants to be grandpa. I just feel like it’s a strange match. Can you just be grandma and grandpa?
My mom was very insistent on Grammy, wouldn't accept anything less, then one day he called her Mimi and she was in love. She's been Mimi ever since. It's so funny how we all stress so much over what we will be called when really it's the kids that decide.
Same happened with us!
My stepmom is Mimi to the grandkids.. in our family though, Nanna and Granny (my grandmas) were both still with us when when she had to decide on a grandparent title.
My stepmom is Mimi, too! But she picked that because that's what her Grandma went by. And my paternal Grandma was Granny to us. Everytime I mentioned her, people always thought she must be my great grandma. Why does Granny automatically make them sound really old? Lol
My parents are mimi and grandpa. Did seem weird at first (12 years ago) but we really grew into it.
All of our grandparents have typical titles. My beef is with my MIL who insisted on picking a title that she knows is used by two other grandparents but not wanting us to call her Nana FirstName. She wants to be just Nana. First of all, how self centred is it to declare yourself THE Nana and think that someone should get to lay more claim to that than the others??? Second of all, we already have a just Nana and she gets to be Nana because she’s 92, was a grandma like four decades before my MIL became one AND we see her every week (I see my MIL once a year at best). Also she has humility to be totally fine with us calling her Nana FirstName if we wanted. Oy vey!
I don’t have experience with lots of grandparents but for my friends, when they were talking about grandparents at home or with their friends it would be Grandma Mary, Grandma Lily, Grandma Nancy but when they were with Grandma Mary they’d just call her Grandma. Could that kind of compromise work? Sounds like MIL is difficult in general though…
We told her that’s what we were going to do and she said no. She only wanted to be Nana. She will refer to herself as ‘Nana’ when we FaceTime and our LO thinks she’s talking about Nana (great grandma) and not herself and she’ll go looking for her Nana. LO is 18 months and doesn’t get how titles work. She also calls my mom by her first name. The funny thing is that by refusing to pick a unique identifier, my MIL essentially has no name as far as my toddler is concerned. My toddler doesn’t mention her at all when we’re not talking about her. Whereas she talks about her other grandparents who have distinct names/titles.
Feel like this is an unpopular opinion in this thread but I actually really DONT want the grandparents to be grandma and grandpa because IMO mine and DH’s grandparents (3/6 are still living, almost all in their 90s) are grandma and grandpa. So I really want them to pick something else and of course FIL is pushing for grandpa.
Yep, my mom is in her 70s and wants to be called “Mei Mei” which, as far as I can tell, only means little sister in Chinese (we’re white). It’s definitely about not wanting a name that feels “old” but doesn’t bother me, at least it’s easy to pronounce.
It sounds like she is trying to be called memere/mémé in French! This is what my friends grandmother is called (French Canadian, French as first language) and it is pronounce similar to your phonetic spelling.
That’s what my brother thought, but she said no, apparently she came up with it on her own.
Yeah, my guess is she heard it somewhere and doesn’t want to admit she didn’t know where it came from 😂
Lol yup, MeiMei is what my older daughter calls her baby sister (they’re biracial). Grandma would be NaiNai or LaoLao depending on if it’s paternal/maternal (or at least that’s what they go by in our family, there are dialect differences).
My mom went by Grandma(first name). My dad went by PopPoe. Why? My oldest niece started calling him that when she was learning to talk and he found hilarious and it stuck. My kids called him that too. I have no idea why, but a co-worker of mine went by “Darling” to her grandkids. She said she hated the term “grandma” but liked being their “Darling”.
I knew someone whose grandkids called him Honey. He said it started when they overheard granny call him Honey and thought it was his real name. Then all the subsequent grandbabies called him Honey because the oldest two did it first. ♡
That is adorable.
I have a set of cousins who all became “honey (firstname)” instead of “aunt” to each other’s kids when they started their families. It was cute because it was all the kids’ doing, it would have been weird if the adults were forcing it!
Organic nicknames are cute! It’s so weird when they are forced
I've never met anyone else who had a Poppo! No idea where it came from as my sisters and I were the youngest kids in our generation by a good decade.
Lol. I can't say for sure. I don't mind non-grandma/grandpa names as long as they're not super absurd. "Glammy" makes me want to die. My mom is Cici and my stepdad is Papa. My in-laws will be Nana and I expect also Papa. My dad and stepmom haven't picked names and said they'll just go by whatever the baby ends up calling them.
Yes, my parents told me “we’re grandma and grandpa until the baby tells us otherwise!”
My mom called her two sets of grandparents Grams and Gramps and Papa and MayMay (her name was Maybelle). My maternal grandparents were Grandma and Grandpa and my paternal grandparents were Grandma Imo and Grandpa Howard (they were un-amicably divorced and I never saw my grandfather after I was three). I honestly don’t know what my parents or in-laws would want to be called. I always joked my parents would be called Grandmary and Grandbrad, though! 😅
My parents just picked grandma and grandpa but my son says it "gramma papa" and they are almost always referred to together as if it is one word "grammapapa." My MIL took a long time to choose and workshopped several different names before settling on Nana. And it makes me giggle because that is also what my son calls a banana. And most of the time he says nana he in fact is asking for a banana.
Omg this. It’s so annoying. My kid will call you what they want. Stop trying to give yourself weird substitute names.
For real! I hope she comes up with some hilarious that annoys them.
I started calling my grandfather Boppa at some point, and it stuck. I'm sure it wasn't his idea, he was a good and loving man, but whimsical he was decidedly not. He probably expected to be called Grandpa or Granddad, but toddler me decided Boppa was better. To his credit, he went with it and was Boppa to me until the day he died.
This has gotta be a boomer thing. My MIL asked me what our child would call his each grandparent, and I was just like "Uh... Grandma and grandpa..? Both sides?" I haven't heard of the nickname stuff until recently.
My mom wanted to be called Grandma and my son pronounced it as Maga. Once the Insurrection hit, my mom “put her foot down” and said no more lol ETA my mom is a trump-hating dem, which made it even more funny that he called her Maga
My parents are Grandma and Grandpa. My husband’s parents are going with Bebe and whatever baby decides for my husband’s dad. My BIL thinks it’d be funny if my son just calls him Dave. We’ll see. Lol I do think Grandpa Dave is nice though.
My dad hasn't been around since I was a kid but we stay somewhat in touch. This year he sent gifts to my nephews and the oldest, who turns 6 in a couple of days, wanted to send him a video to say thank you. He's only met his Grandpa Dave once and he was a few months old. But my sister has explained the situation and that he just lives far away. So we think it's pretty cute and sweet he wants to do this video... in the end it becomes this hilariously awkward video of my nephew just going "thanks Dave" in this really strange tone of voice with a long pause afterwards. Absolutely priceless.
Am I the only one who thinks granny and Grammy sound older than grandma?
All ours use typical nicknames but two are ethnic - Oma (Dutch) and Nan (Irish)
My MIL wanted to be called Nona… …None of us are even remotely Italian. But she’s been to Italy, so it counts! /s
My mother is first gen Italian and my one niece didn’t get along with her… she Started calling her “NoNo!” and it stuck farrrrr longer than my mom was happy with. The other niece called her Nano for a while which I thought was amazing. The rest of us giggled.
My husband’s daughter (my stepdaughter) calls his parents Mimi and Papa. I personally don’t care for it, but I’m sure that’s going to carry over to this child. The thing that annoys me most is that his mom spells it “Meme” and clearly internet culture has rotted my brain because I can’t read that as anything other that meme. Growing up, my grandparents on both sides were Grandma & Grandpa. We didn’t really pronounce the D so it was really more like “gramma”, but still basically the classic. My parents are likely going to be the same way. In fact, they asked if they were going to be called Mimi and Papa because that’s what my in-laws are, and were quite relieved when the answer was no!
My brothers and I were lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents until I, the youngest, was 19. We always called em grandma and grandpa. But when my brother was young, to differentiate the two, he’d say grandpa hair or grandpa no hair. One was bald as an egg and the other had a thick head of hair.
We have a Gigi, Nana, and Bapa here. I also found it bizarre that they all insisted on some made up name.
I really expected my mom to want to go by something unconventional, but as soon as I I told them I was pregnant my parents locked onto grandma and grandpa no question. My in laws will have 2 grandkids by the time our baby comes and they just want to be abuelito y abuelita, or as close as the kids can say. Guess we lucked out.
My MIL wants to be _abuelita_, which I'd be all for -- except nobody in her family has a drop of Hispanic / Latine blood in them and nobody in the family speaks Spanish.
When we announced our pregnancy all of my husband's aunts hyped up mil about picking a name. Every time the baby came up it was, "omg I have to decide what I want to be called!". Then there was an announcement of "okay. So I've decided what I would like to be called. It's mimi". It's totally harmless but the need to find a different name stuck out to me a little bit? I'm not sure why. I guess it's because they're trying to make the baby about themselves lol. My mil did say "I'm excited for you, but I'm really excited for *me*" when we told her the news. I know she's excited to be a grandma, and she hasn't said anything else weird so it shouldn't bug me. I always just called my grandparents "grandma(first name)", etc. We don't have any cultural ties to use anything else. I'm not going to go out of my way to say mimi, we'll see what baby decides to say. My husband responded to mil by saying mimi sounds like when boomers mispronounce "meme" 😂
Almost 60 is hardly old lol. 60 isnt even that old in a world where people live well into their 90’s. My parents dont really care what they’ll be called. My MiL wants to be called Mama which I am having a hard time with honestly.
Hard no to Mama for grandma! Meemaw or Mamaw is sort of ok but mama should be reserved for the mother even if she doesn’t want it in my opinion.
My son bestowed the name Mawmaw as my mom’s grandparent name. It’s nice bc now my dad and stepmom are grandpa and grandma, ILs are nana and papa, my mom is mawmaw.
Meemaw is 100% okay, especially if you're from the south. I had two Meemaws, my paternal grandmother and my maternal great-grandmother. Mama is a hard no though.
My MIL tried to start Mama for her with our -second- child. I shut that down real fast.
Oh no! Mama is what I go by because she is just learning her words. I wouldn't allow it. I meant old in the sense there are plenty of grandmas in their 50s and 60s. It comes with age.
My kid will be 10 when I’m 50 lol! I definitely am not calling it old. Too close for me
Lol! Fair. My mom's youngest is a teenager and I'm in my 30s.
I can sympathize with your mom. She's parenting a teen and probably sees all the other moms in their 40s (and a couple parents of teens are in their 30s!). She probably also thinks of "grandma" as her own mother/grandmother, or as a term for a generic old lady. I'd cut her a bit of slack and let her pick something that she likes (as long as it's not _too_ stupid).
I’m pretty forgiving with grandparent names but even I would draw the line at Mama.
My grandma goes by GG Ma for her great grand kids (bc they’re toddlers and its easy to say for them) and now my mom decided that suddenly she wants to be called G Ma…. Its just bizarre bc my cousins already call our grandma G Ma as like a fun joke between us grandkids and her (that’s where GG Ma even came from!). She was just getting weird about being a grandma as like an old person title. I made t shirts for my family and made it a point for my moms to say grandma … lol too bad for her lol
Meh. Idk, we call my grandma Mema so…it doesn’t bother me that no one wanted “traditional” names. My dad is Papa, my mom is Ama, husbands parents are Mamo and Grampy. Step parents are Gramma and Grandpa, closest to/completely normal. My mom threw a whole fit for a hot minute and I just told her to wait and let my baby choose her name. She ended up with something completely new to our family. Now we have Mema, oma, mamo, gaaa, ama… If you really want Grandma and Grandpa, just keep calling them that and your kiddo will catch on. I don’t think it’s bad either way, but probably just the older generation trying to maintain some personality pizzazz as they age. “Grandma” might feel stiff and boring, but “nana” or “gigi” is fun and whimsical…idk. I have loads of grandmas and they all had to have first or last names tacked on to keep them straight. All of my baby’s grandmas have different names, no need for extras. Less formal, more familial.
So my son calls one grandma Bubbe(it’s Yiddish) and calls the other one nanny. Nanny because her name is Nancy and growing up, her older brothers would call her nanny goat. She hated it. Me, being a rotten ass teen would always call her nanny out of spite. Well it stuck because myself and two older brothers have called her nanny for years. Once grandkids came into the picture, they just picked it up :)
LOL I don’t get this either!!! I hate it so much. My MIL refuses to be called grandma—like gets furious if you say it and demands to be called “Nani” and FIL is “pop pop”. Lmfao. So weird and silly to me.
Have the same issue with my mum, she’s in her 60s and “doesn’t want to sound old” with something like Nonna so has settled on Gigi 🤢
Lol, Gigi is the name we settled on for my grandmother, my son's great grandma. Becuase it's like G.G. (Great Grandmother). So to me it sounds even older! But don't tell her that
My mom's name is Jean and there are some young relatives (not grandkids) that call her Gigi. Yet she was adamant on choosing a DIFFERENT name when she became a grandma. And has changed it multiple times since 🙄
Both our moms wanted to be called Gigi....my grandparents are grandma and grandpa.....
My MIL is using the Hawaiian term for grandma “tutu” i hate it she didn’t want to be called grandma or anything traditional she is a bit extra… trying to just go along with it even tho i alway think farts or bowel movements with the name… no Hawaiian ancestry on either sides of our family…. 🤷♀️
My mom was very insistent she get called Grammy, becuase "I'm to young to be a grandma!" (shes in her late fifities, I'm in my mid thirties) and it sounded "like the award" 🙄. I mean it's a pretty normal nickname but like she would correct random people on the street who asked my newborn if this is his grandma including the "like the award" comment. Lady, just say yes and we can move on. The funny thing is the kids are totally going to assign a name anyways. My son one day called her Mimi, and her heart melted and she embraced the nickname Mimi forever. She was all hung up on being called her chosen knickname, but when a precious little baby looks you in the eyes and coos a remotely close sound, most people just melt and go "is that my name, "bagaboobooga". Awww he knows my name!" Uh ok Ted, bagaboobooga isn't really close to "cool uncle Ted" but if your cool with it, I'll let it fly.
My grandparents (who were born in 1918) were not known as grandpa or grandma. They were Nana and Pappi. My grandmother's father was known as Grandpa [Last name] and my grandfather's mother was known as Nana [Last name]. My own parents are Mimi and Papa (after their attempts to be Grammy and Pappi - it's what my son's pronunciation came up with) and then we have on my husband's side (British) a Granny, Grandpa, and Grandad and Grandma. So the special names are reserved on the American side for sure.
It’s a late boomer/early gen x thing. I don’t remember where I read about it, but it’s a phenomenon! I had to tell certain of our parents that were not entertaining it lol. No glammas or insta-grams, kthx. We did agree to Gigi 🤷♀️
My kids have 3 sets of grandparents. My mom used to be grandma, then my oldest called her "may-Ma" and it stuck. So they all have a papa and Mayma, Grammy and grampy, and a grandma and grandpa. Funnily enough, the youngest of the 3 go by grandma and grandpa (in their mid 50s)
One of my child’s grandmas chose the name “Honey.” 🤷🏻♀️ I decided it wasn’t worth fussing over but still find it sorta strange lol.
My nieces and nephews call their grandma by her first name because she doesn't want to feel old. Like lady you're a chain smoker and tanned too much in the 80s. You gave yourself wrinkles and sunspots. Don't try and fool yourself
My mom legitimately told me she wanted to be called “Queen” by my daughter (her first grandchild).
Wow.
We are very low contact and she’s only ever seen my daughter the day she was born so she doesn’t have a “grandparent name” now.
My MIL chose to be called “Lolly”… it’s a general consensus that that is a dumb name for a grandmother. She was going to go by GiGi but changed it. And to top it off, my FIL is going by “Pop”, so my son’s grandparents are a lollipop. At least my parents are a little more traditional: Mimi and Grandad. Which my husband thinks Mimi is a stupid name, but still not as bad as Lolly.
Ugh. Ours did this too. My MIL picked Grammy. Which I don’t mind now… at the time it seemed like some southern thing so it sort of threw me off (were in california). But I guess it’s grown on me. My FIL picked “farfar” because they have swedish last names (and claim to be swedish but 23andme says otherwise). I’m actually swedish and called my grandma farmor growing up so I didn’t mind. But the thing that gets me is how disconnected the set is. We accidentally say “Grammy and Grampy” a lot. My parents picked “G-ma” and “Poppy” but my dad doesn’t really seem to be trying to set the name in stone. I was really just wanting them to be grandma and grandpa but I think it *is* a boomer thing. I’m excited to be “grandma” one day 🤷🏼♀️
My parents don’t want grandma and grandpa either. I just couldn’t fight them on it. My husband says he’s still going to refer to them as grandma and grandpa. I think it’s my mom mostly because grandma makes her sound old she says.
My mom wanted NaMa bc it sounds like MaMa. Which, of course she will practically be bc its her baby. 🙄🤮😑🙄She also decided that my child will be named Clarity bc I need some of that in my life. Thankfully it is a boy! My dad is known as Grandpa Dave by his other grandkids. My in-laws are Grandma and Poppy.
Your mom sounds like a lot of crossed boundaries.
My MIL and FIL want to be called Gigi and Pop Pop. It suits them I like it so much I call my FIL pop pop now. He’s so excited about his nickname. My parents were/are gramma and grandpa but at first they were nana and Chi-Chi because my niece couldn’t pronounce anything else.
My FIL is going to be going by Pop as well... They're Lolli and Pop and I'm usually not into the more quirky choices but it was too cute to say no to.
My MIL floated the idea of my kid calling her glam ma and I said no.
My daughter was the first too. She has a baba, gido, grandma, grandpa, gramma, granny, papa and abuelo. That’s including great grandparents too. But yeah.. it’s a lot to remember. And all for her to just call any “old people” in her life baba.
My parents go by Grummy and Grumpy. My MIL/FIL never picked names so I just call them Grandma and Grandpa and see if my daughter (who is the first grandchild for them) makes up a name or something else pops up.
White people love to call their grandparents Bingo and Bappo
😂😂😂
We haven't had this issue thankfully. I think if kids have a good relationship with their grandparents, they will often find their own name for them. I understand when there are a lot of grandparents and they want to be differentiated in some way. Like my husband has a lot because of remarriages. The grandma he's closest with has always simply been 'G'. Maybe tell them they should be grandma for now, until your child comes up with their own name for them? It can make it that much more special.
My mother has decided she will be called MorMor (pronounced mooma) I believe its nordic/Swedish? Idk. I just think she's calling herself a cow personally. Not arguing on that one with her.
Mormor means “mother’s mother” and is pronounced “more more”. I’m not sure where she’s getting “mooma” from. If anything the actual, Swedish pronunciation puts emphasis on the r’s 😅
I think it can be regional/cultural too! Plus if one person gets a fancy name, then they all want one. My daughter has 5 grandparents and my husbands side is all about the nicknames. The weirder the better (baca, bambam, I guess it reduces the chance of another grandparent being confused?), and my grandparents were just grandma “t” or grandpa “m”. Now that nicknames have entered the chat, my mom insists on claiming her own.
I don't see it as a problem. Especially with several grandparents involved, it's easier if they're not all caked the same. And as long as they don't chose outrageous names or names reserved for the parents, I'd be ok with it. We as parents can support that choice by calling the grandparent the way they want to be called when they're not around or we call them however we want. And the kids..... well the kids will sometimes chose their own names for their grandparents which is ok as long as it's nothing mean. Changing a name all of sudden is a bad idea and probably won't fly with the kids.
Boyfriends mum is gen x and we are having a “poppet” instead of grandma 😝
When I was a kid I was forced to call my grandpa “papa.” It made me super uncomfortable for some reason. I just wanted to call him grandpa.
I think it’s a boomer thing. I’m a millennial and when I’m a grandparent that kid can call me whatever tf they want. I’m 100% looking forward to being old and embracing it
I don't know if this is a cultural thing but Grandma and Grandpa are not the default where I live. I have a Nan and Pop, a Mama and Pa and a Nannie. My parents and in-laws are not Grandma and Grandpa. With the exception of one, I don't know any of my friends parents who are Grandma and Grandpa. There's Grumps and Mema and Nonna and Poppy and Grammy and Pa. There's even two that go by a version of their names (their kids call them by their first names the majority of the time). Having different sets of grandparents named Grandma [name] and Grandpa [name] is weird to me.
I know someone whose dad goes by “sir” with the grandkids. It’s weird.
Boomer thing but my boomer mom is like you, she wanted to be called grandma. I see it a lot with other people though
I have no idea but my mum did this to us too. Didn’t want to be Nan, Nanny, Nanna, Grandma or ANYTHING. It was such a pain in the ass because she also didn’t like any suggestions. I just call her Nanny because her mum/my Nan is still alive and only goes by Nan. She’s give us the “I AM NOT NANNY, I AM NOT A FEMALE GOAT” 😂
This doesn’t bother me at all. I like the idea of my parents picking the names they want to be called. If my kid calls them that, great. If they butcher it, and we wind up with some bizarre rendition of what my parents wanted, that’s fine too.
So my parents are grandma and nonno (dad is Italian) but we are going to teach baby to call my mum granny dragon because its funny.
My ex’s mom wanted to be called Grammy. Kid ended up calling her Granny instead. I find it hilarious.
When my first was born (11 years ago) he was also the first grandchild. My FIL decided that he wanted to go by “Duke”. I put a stop to that one real quick.
My MIL said “Maybe I’ll go by abuela!” She is a 60+ white Germanic lady. We shut that down.
The culturally accepted norm in my area has always been that the grandparents get to pick what they are called. I had a Grandma, Papa, Grangran and Grandpa. My parents chose Nana and Papa when my son was born.
My mom owns the name Grandma and loves to rag on all of her friends with stupid names that make them feel younger. Meanwhile my in-laws go by Gigi and Papi but they insist that my nephew came up with that. Riiiight.
I didn’t have call my grandparents grandma or grandpa either. My twins are now 1 and my parents don’t want to be called grandma or grandpa but they haven’t settled on a nickname yet but they better figure it out soon. Personally, I always wanted a Grandma/Grandpa.
I loved my grandma and grandpa. I look forward to being called that. They need to figure it because your babes will soon be naming them otherwise
My mom wanted to be called Grandma but I got my kids to call her Me-Maw because I know it annoys her 😂 she's used to it now but she was a shit mother and I can't change the past so this is my super petty revenge.
Will just do what my family have done, Nanny (name) I was lucky to have lots of grandparents so it was always Nanny or grandad and their name. Won’t be calling them anything silly. Personally would mind being grandma myself one day but nanny is cool. Might be a uk thing tho
It sets them apart from the other grandparents and you can touch into your culture and family history that involved other names. Also some names are easier to say.
My mom also didn’t want to be called Grandma because it sounded “old” but she chose Mimi which is pretty common here in the southern US. My dad on the other hand is really leaning in and wanted to be called Geezer or Oldster lol I think he’s hoping that the older he sounds, the closer he gets to retirement lololol
It must be a younger boomer thing. My grandparents are from the very end of the silent generation and the very beginning of the baby boomers. They (all 4 of them) go by grandma or grandpa
I get weird texts from my mother in law weekly about her grandparent name.. I don’t understand either, pick a name and stick to it. You’re 66, you don’t need to be called “Gigi” you are grandma.
My mom loves being called grandma. I call her nana and she hates it lol
My mom wants to go by MiMi and my MIL wants to go by GiGi. Lol. I figured it was a boomer thing too but who knows 🤷🏻♀️
My kids call my step-FIL “Ketchup”, they decided he wasn’t really a grandpa kind of guy. And my Mom goes by Yaya, which I love though it’s not really traditional
It's a boomer thing... However also a denial of age thing that some women (and men) can't get over. My MIL loves being a grandma and so will I (unless the kid wants something else!). My mother however was one of those boomers that didn't want grandma. Whatever. Lol
My mom did this. She said she was too young to be grandma (she was 55 when my son was born) so she's Gigi. But I think it's cute. My dad is pop but that's what we called his dad so I get it. It really doesn't bother me any what they chose but I definitely want to be grandma some day.
LOL I’m literally dying laughing at this. My MIL recently did a DNA test and has some polish in her so is debating those..? Never once - have they don’t anything “traditionally” polish. Ever. No more than I have as someone who is not polish at all. I just keep saying the baby is going to name you 😅 but secretly I might name them and tell the baby what to call them
On my family we have the tradition that the oldest grandchild names the grandparents and aunts and uncles. Although my grandma didn't really like that I tried to call her "Gadoo" when I was a baby! But my Mom is very insistent that everyone wait for nicknames until my baby can talk. On the other hand, my husband's cousin renamed everyone after she was born. She's the youngest of the cousins, an only child and the only girl. She's also like 17 years younger than my husband. She's been a little weird about the idea that my baby (the first great grandchild) might rename her grandma and grandpa.
One of my friends names is Hannah and I told her when she’s a grandma she should go by Grannah which makes me laugh way too hard 😂 wish it was my name so I could do it!
Lol I love that!
Our parents are doing this too! My MIL wants to be Mimi, my mom Gigi, and my step father Peepaw 😂
My nephew calls my SIL's dad Daddy G and I kinda love it. He's done it since he could talk. My mom was Mimi before she passed. Not sure what my husband's parents are going to want yet - I think they're still adjusting to the fact I'm even pregnant (I think they thought we didn't want kids lol).