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Good names for Grand people

00:59 / 07.01.05

all my six grandparents were all still alive until i was about nineteen. now only nana mac, almost 96, remains. the rest, alas, are remains.

but we called my dad's dad - who ran the butcher shop my dad owned with his best best friend from aged 4 (s'why i have six grandparents) - was called by all and sundry simply 'mac'. so susie, his wife, enjoyed being 'nana mac' (he was not permitted to sing 'if you knew susie like i knew susie' until after 5am each morning. this regulation was imposed by nana mac to stop him singing it at 4am... : ) )

mum's side we had nana russell, after her husband, robert's, surname; he went by the simple epithet 'pa'.

and mac's mate ted was, to us, just 'ted' & so his wife ida was, you guessed it, ida'...

but you hear some wonderful names - many more inventive than out here in the colonies! - for grandfolk - so what are they??

09:00 / 07.01.05

Only had one set of grandparents. They were called Granny and Grandad / Grampo / Pop / Auld Yin. Working class Scottish families tend towards the matriarchal, hence the formality of just one title for the ancestress and the greater informality re grandfather names.

Only the posher kids had a Nana where I came from, although that usage seems to be spreading.

I get the impression that grandmothers these days dislike the antiquated sound of Granny. The word does conjure up the image of a grey haired octogenarian knitting socks and soaking her dentures, not today's spry sixty year old women travelling the world to avoid the British winter and babysitting only their toyboys.

09:58 / 07.01.05

On my Dad's side I have a Nan and a Grandad (these are my northern grandparents)
On my mum's side I have a Grandma and I had a Grandfather.
Xoc: it's strange that Nan was the posher name for a grandmother up in Scotland because down south it's very much the opposite; It was considered very odd having a Nan rather than a grandma when I was a kid.

09:59 / 07.01.05

My dad's family is Greek so we called his parents Yaya (grandmother) and Papou (grandfather). My mum's are Italian so we called her mum Nonna, but for some reason her dad was not Nonno but Grandad. Strange.

We grew up only speaking English so it's odd that scattered throughout my family's vocab there are some random things we use Greek or Italian words for.

12:20 / 07.01.05

On my dad's side I had a Grandma. On my mum's I had a Mama (pronounced Maa-maa) and a Papa (pronounced Paa-Paa). When my oldest cousin was a baby, he couldn't promounce Grandma and Grandpa properly, and the names stuck.

12:29 / 07.01.05

On dad's side it was Babs and Batman (Barbera and Albert, not sure where the batman thing came from) and then later pops. On mums it was Alice and Ted (Alice was nan's name, but Ted's was Austin). Only had one great grand parent, nanny-Duke.

12:40 / 07.01.05

Mine are all dead sadly.

My son's got four Grandma's all of whom are known by Grandma, followed by either a nickname or a name.

So there's

Grandma Mac
Grandma Bob
Grandma Sue
Grandma Jelly

My Dad who was his Grandad is referred to "Grandad-with-the-sore-head-and-the-sore-arm-who-died" but the beautiful man thinks I should stop this because it means I only ever remember him like that too.

13:27 / 07.01.05

Mm. Interesting to see who goes for first name vs. surname—UI think it's a generational thing. My mom, for instance, who is in her late 70s, has always been "Gramma Feerick" to all of her many grandchildren, while D's dad and stepmother (who are a generation younger) are "Grandpa Steve and Grandma Donna," and her mom "Grandma Marilyn."

Divorce, remarriage, and shacking up of g'parents complicate matters considerably, too. Marilyn's long-time unmarried live-in companion was just "Neil" for a long, long time, but after some years Claire started calling him "Grandpa Neil"—sort of by mistake, sort of experimentally—and we all just kind of looked at each other and shrugged. Why not?

For more extended family, I find that relationships become ceremonial titles, and persist irrespective of the speaker's actual relationship to the subject. We have an elderly relation named Robert—my father-in-law's uncle. Claire calls him "Uncle Robert" because that's what D calls him, and D calls him "Uncle Robert" because that's what her dad called him. Hell, Icall him "Uncle Robert," though he's no blood kin to me.

13:44 / 07.01.05

Gramma and Grampa, phonetically speaking, for all grands and great grands. All four of my grandparents were alive while I was in my tender years, and I knew two great grandmas of mine. But, alas (she says to herself), only one 92 yo grandma is still alive, and she is very very late stage alzheimer's. Sigh.

14:07 / 07.01.05

Grrr. Fucking Alzheimer’s, man. I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Not just for the indignities and terrors it delivers to folks who have it, not just for the agonies it inflicts on their caregivers (when someone you love looks at you with no flicker of recognition, it is a knife-wound from which you never really recover), but for what it steals from the generations that follow.

See, I love old people. Love their stories, and find them endlessly fascinating. The stories of the world and the way it was. I never knew my own grandmother—Alzheimer’s had stolen her already by the time I was old enough to care. As an adult, I felt immensely privileged to get to know D’s grandmother. She was elf-deprecating to a fault, but once you got her going—man! I’d be nailed to my seat, and wiping my eyes with laughter.

And when she started to slip, just before the end—less from dementia than from being doped up to the eyeballs—I felt bereft, yeah, but I also felt angry: angry in a purely selfish way, because there was so much that I still wanted to know, and she couldn’t tell me any more.

Sorry for the rot: go on ahead.

14:10 / 07.01.05

Divorce, remarriage, and shacking up of g'parents complicate matters considerably, too.

Yes, Mrs J's grandmother shacked up with someone in her 80s. What was he? "Boyfriend"? "Companion"? Neither of these seemed quite right, so we used the term "fancyman".

My mother and father are "grandma" and "granddad" to my children, and Mrs J's parents are "grandma" and "grandpa." The issue of forenames or surnames hasn't arisen yet.

Haus of Mystery

14:11 / 07.01.05

On my Dad's side I have Sella (my grandmother, a bastardization of 'Ursula'), and my grandfather was Grandpa.

Mum's side it's Nanna and, Iguess, Grandpa again (i never met him).

Both Gran's are in their 80's and going strong, both male variants gone, proving that the MacGyver females are a tough bunch, whilst the males sadly succumb to the vices of modern life all too easily...

14:32 / 07.01.05

I only have Grandmothers left alive.

My French Granny is called "Mammy" and my Grandpa was "Pappy".

"Granny" and "Granpa" for my UK Grandparents. Terrifyingly, my Scottish Granny wears this silver broach pinned at her throat that says "Mother". She's a stern woman who seems to enjoy the authority of mother/grandmotherhood.

20:19 / 07.01.05

Growing up, I had the privilege of having three grandmothers (dad's dad was a remarryin' fool) -- only his last wife survives.

She is B. B for Beryl, occasionally Grandma B.

Dad's dad was Grandpa, his mom was Phylma. Her name was Phyllis, which she said sounded like SYPhillis, and she hated hated hated being called grandma. So she stuck the two together.

Mom's dad died when she was very young. Her mom was named Dorothy, but we (the American grandkids) called her "Granny Fanny," which is much less naughty here than in South Africa or the rest of the English-speaking world. It's because my sister couldn't say "granny" the first time they met.

And now, my mother has become "Nai-nai" and my father "Ye-ye" (which should be pronounced "yuh-yuh" but comes out as "yay-yay"). Those are Mandarin names for Grandma and Grandpa. Oddly, in Mandarin I'd be "Baba" which my dad swears is the same in Zulu.

02:40 / 08.01.05

On my mom's side we had Abuelito and Grammy Marian (both divorced and remarried. Strangely none of the rest of his decendents called him Abuelito (spanish for little grandfather) it was only my mom and me and my sister who did. I guess he was also called just grandpa, but he lived in another state with his wife Marta and was somewhat distant from the family. Grammy Marian was married to Grandpa John, but not any more. We more often call her just Grammy.

My Dad's side also had remarriages. His adopted father was Grandpa Slim who had a wife Evie(spellcheck?) (we never called her gramma or anything) His real name is Carl, but no one ever uses his given name. Everyone calls him Slim. I just call him Grandpa to his face and Grandpa Slim when I'm talking about him to someone else. Dad's mother, Grandma Mickey had a husband named Gary. We've never met Dad's biological father, though I hear he's still around. I can't even remember his name.

I find it interesting that we called Granpa John 'granpa' when he was never involved in our lives (despite living close by) but we never called any of the other spouses of g'parents grandpa or grandma, they being no more distant emotionally than John.

Now my mom is Nanna to her grandkids and my dad is alternately Papa or Grandpa. no surnames or forenames included. For more distant relatives we used surnames most often: grandpa pleuddamann for example, but not always: Auntie Ellen. I have an uncle Paul and HE has an Uncle Paul and I call the both of them Uncle Paul. get's confusing.

wembley can change in 28 days

08:35 / 08.01.05

On my mom's side there's:

Toini-mummi
Jaska-vaari

Toini is my grandmother's name, mummi is like grandma in finnish. Jaska (or was it Jyskä?) is some kind of nickname in finnish, and I don't even know my grandfather's actual name. Vaari is also a slangy grampa, although I'm not sure if it's Karelian or more common Finnish.

Then there's the step-grandparents, Mabel and Claire. "Claire" as a man's name is super cool, and I'm pretty sure that's how he spelled it, too.

Dad's side:

Grandma
Grandpa

Their names are Fern and Len, but they're really grandma and grandpa.
The step-grandparents are Nana and Papa to most of the other kids, but I usually call Papa by his name, Richard.

XXII:X:II = XXX

04:56 / 10.01.05

All of my grandparents are now passed on, one of which about a decade before I was even born. They all were Grandmas and Grandpa (occasionally dropping out the 'd' and/or replacing the 'n' with an 'm').

As my parents are now grandparents, they've gone with non-standard monickers: my dad is now Papa and my stepmother is Gran. My mother, when we still spoke to her, insisted on being referred to as Grande-mere (I would accent that but I don't know how on a PC), which should speak volumes about the woman's pretentions and delusions. Behind her back, we'd snicker and call her "grand mal". Her husband was never interested enough to really warrant any particular pet name, which suits us all just fine; we have our own names for him. On my bro-in-law's side, his parents just go by "Grandpa Bob," etc.

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