"Grandma" Titles??

[zoebartlett]

Date: 5/7/2009 12:01:01 PM
Author: luckystar112
I called both of my grandmother''s ''Memere'', so I can''t be of much help. It''s the french equivalent of ''Grandmother''.


How about Nana?

Lucky,

My husband''s family is French-Canadian (living in northern New England), and all of his nieces and nephews call his mom "mem." Is "Memere" a New England thing or what? I know SO MANY people who call their grandmas that.

 

[zoebartlett]

My mom announced to us (and my sister and BIL) that she wants to be called Grandie. She read it in a book and loved it. I think kids are going to come up their own name and that will stick.

My own grandparents were grandma/grandpa and nana/pop pop.

One of my friends has two girls, and when they were little, they couldn''t say grandma, so they called one of their grandmothers Deebee and the other one Geebee (the g is the same sound as the one in "girl."). It stuck, and to this day, that''s what they''re called.

 

[Bia]

Date: 5/7/2009 8:01:12 PM
Author: ZoeBartlett

Date: 5/7/2009 12:01:01 PM

Author: luckystar112

I called both of my grandmother's 'Memere', so I can't be of much help. It's the french equivalent of 'Grandmother'.

How about Nana?

Lucky,

My husband's family is French-Canadian (living in northern New England), and all of his nieces and nephews call his mom 'mem.' Is 'Memere' a New England thing or what? I know SO MANY people who call their grandmas that.

I think only (well typically) if your roots are French/French Canadian. I spent a lot of summers in Maine and knew a few kids who called their parents maman/papa and grandparents memere/pepe (pepere). Most of them all have roots from Quebec. I am from Massachusetts and I noticed almost all my friends, except my 'off the boat' Italian friends (Nona/Nonno), called their grandparents "Grandma/Granny/Nana."

I also call my mother Mami, so my kids will call my mother either "Mama," "Ama," "Nani," or "LaLa" (short for "Abuela")...something like that. I will let her decide. FI's mother is greek and therefore will be "Yai Yai."

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

My cousin calls hers Mimi and Papa - I''ve always liked those.

 

[April20]

Date: 5/7/2009 8:07:46 PM
Author: ZoeBartlett
My mom announced to us (and my sister and BIL) that she wants to be called Grandie. She read it in a book and loved it. I think kids are going to come up their own name and that will stick.

My own grandparents were grandma/grandpa and nana/pop pop.

One of my friends has two girls, and when they were little, they couldn''t say grandma, so they called one of their grandmothers Deebee and the other one Geebee (the g is the same sound as the one in ''girl.''). It stuck, and to this day, that''s what they''re called.

Zoe- that''s what my grandmother wanted too. Yeah, she''s called "Nanny", which she hates. She says it reminds her of a goat.

 

[IloveAsschers13]

Date: 5/7/2009 4:28:48 PM
Author: princesss

Date: 5/7/2009 3:25:41 PM

Author: ams0124

Date: 5/7/2009 3:17:33 PM

Author: oobiecoo

I think GiGi is a cute grandma name... not sure how you really spell it but its pronounced just like 2 ''G''s. Memere sounds nice too!

FSIL''s kids call their great-grand parents ''Gigi-ma'' and ''Gigi-Pa''...I thought it was so cute when I first head them say it!!

My great grandparents were Baba and Gigi. It''s Russian (I think) for grandmother and grandfather.


BF''s grandparents were/are ''Grandfather'' and ''Grammie.'' BF is a little bitter that ''Grandfather'' became ''Grampie'' for his younger cousins. BF has a speech impediment that was pretty bad when he was really young, and ''Grandfather'' was really hard for him to say. So when the younger kids got to say ''Grampie'' it annoyed him a little. But it was sweet, hearing him say, ''Grandfather, can I help you with that?'' His grandfather was 93 when he died, and it just suited him perfectly.

Hey- my BF is from Russia, the real words are Babushka and Dedushka- so it''s kinda close (the baba anyways

)

I call my grandma (whose polish) Grandma Busha (haha grandma grandma) but I know my next store neighbors call their grandparents Amma and Poppa.

 

[VRBeauty]

My father is "Papa," my mother is "Moeke" (mookeh), which is kind of like "mommy" in her native. tongue. The grandkids took to those names with no problem, and it gave the DILs a name they could use other than my parents'' first names -- which would have been uncomfortable for my parents -- that''s still informal and familiar.

 

[mayachel]

My mother''s mother has always been "mor mor" which is Danish for grandmother, but specifically mother''s mother. "fa mor" is for the father''s mother. Useful in distinguishing family relations.

 

[Haven]

A lot of my students call their grandmothers "Wella" which is short for "Abuela." I really like that.

 

[Jas12]

But she IS a grandmother

I think grandmas are re-defining the image. There are plenty of cool grandmothers --my mom being one of them. She calls herself GRAMS which is really cute. But like others have said, my son will probably pick something that will stick.

My son has 2 grandmas/grandpas, 5 great grandparents living in the same city and over a dozen great-aunts and uncles , so like you we are trying to come up with variations on the theme.
Some of the great aunts call themselves "Granties" which is so funny and since we are Italian we use Nono and Nona to distinquish the great-grandparents on my side.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

My mom has decided she wants to be called "Nana" which is a TOTAL surprise to me. We have no "Nanas" in our family. It''s always been Grammy, Gramma, or Grandma. I have no problem with Nana, if that''s what she wants to be called then so be it. I don''t like "grandma." It''s too formal. I like Grammy.

 

[doodle]

Date: 5/7/2009 1:31:21 PM
Author: curlygirl

Date: 5/7/2009 12:37:58 PM

Author: somethingshiny

You can try to ''name'' grandma all you want, but you know the baby''s gonna come up with the REAL name, right??



Our son has a Nana and a Grammie. We were going for ''Nana'' and ''Grandma.'' Also, his grandpas became Papa and Pa. We were going for ''Papa'' and ''Grandpa.''



Goldie Hawn went by Glam-ma.

Yup, I agree with the bolded part! My mother was fine with being called ''grandma'' but my daughter decided to call her ''mee-mom''. Not really sure how to spell it but that''s how it sounds! My father was fine with ''grandpa'' but she calls him ''baba''. No idea where it came from! My MIL is known to her other grandchildren as ''nonni'', a diminutive version of the Italian word for grandmother: ''nonna''. So that one stuck but I think it''s really cute when the kids come up with their own names for their grandparents.

Oh yeah, it''s all fun and games until you''re a teenager and in the same place my cousin is or my husband was!!! My cousin named his grandparents "Bobo" and "Bud". It stuck, he''s now 15, and it embarrasses him to death! My husband''s was even worse--somehow, his grandparents were "Ta-ta" and "Goo-goo". Could you imagine getting old enough to realize that all this time you''ve been calling your grandmother a slang term for a booby?!?! Luckily for his cousins, he got old enough to change the name before his cousins wound up getting stuck using the assigned grandparental monikers, too, hahahaha!

 

[somethingshiny]

I just found out a girl I know called her Grandma CeeCee. Her grandma''s name started with a C. I thought that was cute. Course, "Effeff" could give the wrong impression....

 

[vetrik]

We''ve just been going through this in my family as my parents'' first grandchild was born last June, and I''m due in July with the 2nd.

My two sets of grandparents were Grammy & Grampa, and Gramma and Grandpa. I had great grandmothers Nana and Great-Grammy.
DH''s grandparents were Mema and Papa.

My mom has decided to go by Granny - I have a tough time with this name for some reason, so I hope I won''t screw up how I refer to her once my baby is born. She did have a little bit of an issue with the image of a "Granny" - my mom is only 52, so still very young. A Granny tends to be pictured as a white haired lady with an apron and a bun, but she''s figuring she can redefine the name!
My dad is going by Grandpa.
My Gramma, who became a great-grandmother, jokingly told us all to refer to her as "The Great One". However, that seems to be sticking!
DH''s parents stick with the traditional Grandma and Grandpa.

My SIL''s father is a dentist, and decided to go by Doc when my nephew was born.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Oh I almost forgot. My dad''s fiance has 4 grandkids. He''s been in the picture since before they were born, so he''s essentially their grandfather. But, he doesn''t want to be called grandpa because they''re not REALLY his gks. So they call him Robpa (Rob+Grandpa). It''s really cute and it''s kindof stuck, so I think our kids will probably call him Robpa (pronounced Rahpah)too.

 

[iheartscience]

My mom goes by Mimi...another plus is that the little ones can say it really early! My dad is known as Tapa because the first grandchild named him that!

 

[redfaerythinker]

I think my family is weird because we don''t let strange nicknames stick. I have a grandma, and a papa, and that''s who they''ve always been. I''m sure there was a time that I pronounced it wrong, but in my family it was just like any other word. I mean you wouldn''t let your kid get away with refridgefreightor for their whole life would you?

Oh and my future MIL decided that she wanted to have her first grandchild call her... wait for it... Wibby.

 

[kittybean]

I''m Ukrainian, and I call both sets of grandparents "Baba" (grandma) and "Dido" (grandpa) paired with their respective first names. One of my grandmothers likes the diminutive form "Babtsya" now, so we try to remember to say that.

I wonder what my parents will want to be called--grandchildren are definitely not on their radar at the moment (phew!).

 

[bebe]

ditto for "Mimi" and CeeCee

 

[GoingCrazy29]

We called mine Grandma and Grandpa, however throughout the years Grandma got morphed into Gram, Grams, or Gram-cracker. My mom wants to go by Grammie when we have kids. I called my great-grandma Gigi and thought that was her real name for a very long time. I think its cute when kids come up with their own version, its unique and special