Grandmother name question

[dakarimom5]

So my oldest son got married. Please hold the congrats since he didn't even tell me about it..I read it in the newspaper.:glare: But he married a girl who has a baby already so I guess that makes me a grandmother. SO I need a name. Grandmommy, Nana and Grammy have all been taken. So what can I be?

 

Also, would it be wierd if I had another baby and it's younger than my grandson?

[jenn1129]

first, :grouphug:'s.

 

we have a Grandma, a Nana, and a Gramma.

 

Mamaw is big around here.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Grandma (or any of the above) Your Last Name

 

Grandmom

[Hannah C.]

:grouphug:

 

We have a Granny, a Grandma, a Nana (my great-grandmother), and a Grandma Firstname (my grandma).

 

IMHO I think having a grandbaby older than your own baby is weird, but also cool. :) It wouldn't stop me from having another kid if I wanted to have another one.

[Parrothead]

Mimi (pronounced me-me).

[KrissiK]

:grouphug: We have two "Grandmas" around here. One is "Grandma H." and the other is "Grandma K." That's how it was when I was growing up, too. I called both grandmothers "Grandma".

[TCB]

My kids are only 10 and 7 but i've already decided I want to be Grandmama ( accent on the first syl) :)

[LBS]

decided to be "Grandmother" which always was formal-sounding, but she was a beloved grandmother, so it was said with love, if a bit queenly sounding. My husband's grandmother was Teeney (the eldest came up with this for her real name Ina), and his grandfather "Daddy Cocke" (for his real last name.) Also beloved grandparents, but I always thought how silly the names sounded. SO, I managed to call my parents-in-law "Grandma" and "Grandpa". I circumvented when they tried to get my kids to say "Pawpaw" because my grandfather was Pawpaw and I, selfishly, didn't want any other to be called so. A friend's daughter, kept gesturing to her mom, saying to her toddler "Who's this lady?" SO the perfect name for this grandmother was "Lady". Very elegant.

I say chose a name you like, and want to hear yourself called by all your future grandchildren, just in case. Something young, since you must be a young if you're still having babies.

 

Having your child have a step-aunt or step-uncle who is older, is cool! When I was growing up, the "Singing King Family" was on TV and they had this situation. I thought it was cool, once I figured it out.

 

Sorry you indicate some distance by not knowing about the marriage, till reading about it in the paper. I surely hope that gets better!

 

Good wishes,

LBS

[gardening momma]

Also, would it be wierd if I had another baby and it's younger than my grandson?

My grandparents were foster parents for over 50 years, and adopted 6 kids. They had 3 biological kids, and my mom is the second oldest. The youngest kid is 9 months younger than I am. So I'm used to it, although I do acknowledge that it's unusual.

[SonshineLearner]

Grammie :) It's the sweetest, except for maybe Nana:) And, my mom was an aunt before she was born... more than once over:)

[gardening momma]

:grouphug: We have two "Grandmas" around here. One is "Grandma H." and the other is "Grandma K." That's how it was when I was growing up, too. I called both grandmothers "Grandma".

We always called our grandmothers "Grandma (last name)" when we were not with them, to differentiate between them. In their presence we called them "Grandma."

[dakarimom5]

Does Avia sound okay? It's Latin for grandmother. I'm teaching all my children that still live here Latin next year.

[TCB]

I think Avia is kind of cool.

[KatieJ]

Grand children tend to come up with their own version of your name..sometimes it is cuter than whatever you can come up with.

In this case I would think the child might not be ready to jump in and call you Grandma right away...but offer than he/she can call you Grandma ( first name) or Grandma( last name) whatever they are comfortable with makes the most sense to me.

[RachelFlores]

My mom is Ganna, a combo of Grandma and Nana. It's very easy for a little one to say. My mil is Grandma. My grandmother was Nonie to my children, it was made up by a much younger cousin and my grandma loved it. I think Avia is pretty neat.

[hana]

No help on the name--I'm just Grandma. But my two youngest children are younger than four of my grandchildren.

[ZooRho]

I grew up with a Mawmaw,

my boys had a Grandma-dh's mom who had grandkids

 

I wanted my mom to have her own name,

but we didn't really have a name.

 

When oldest was almost 2 we were going to go visit them. i had pictures on his picture rind. I asked him who they were He named my dad Pop-Pop, and my mom

 

BANNA. SHE loves it, it is her VERY own name.

[littleWMN]

I think Avia is cool!

 

I have several friends with kids younger than their grandkids (they were adopted, but it doesn't matter).

 

My grandparents were Mema and Papa H. and Mema and Papa M.

 

My kids have a Grandma and Papa, Grandmom and Grandad (my dad, who passed away two years ago), and Grandmom was remarried recently and so far we only call him Mr. Thomas b/c nobody can agree on anything... I'm thinking of Grandpa Thomas.

 

My Mema and Papa M. are still living and are Grandy and Grampy to their great-grandchildren.

Edited February 14, 2011 by littleWMN

[missmoe]

We have a grammy, grandma, and grandmama.

[Kirch]

My parents are Nani (sounds like "Nonny") and Papa. My IL's are Oma and Opa--the German words for grandma and grandpa.

[Tap]

DD4 calls her grandMOTHER....CranPa. It is so sweet the way that she says it, no one has ever corrected her. The grandfather is Papa....so they are CranPa and Papa.

 

She calls the other grandmas...grandma, so we have no idea where CranPa came from. LOL

[Dianne-TX]

My kids are only 10 and 7 but i've already decided I want to be Grandmama ( accent on the first syl) :)

 

We've done this too. DH will be Poppy and I'll be either Mammy or Grammy or Squishy. The kids thought Squishy was cute because a grandma is supposed to be squishy feeling. Of course, I guess that means I have more "squish" to me than I might like, but oh well. :glare: It makes for a cute grandma name.

[Lawana]

I am Mawmaw, but it sounds like Momma when dgd says it. Dgd's mother is Mommy. I am 51, and have a 14yo and a 11yo. We babysit my (step)granddaughter while her mother (my stepdaughter) works full time. People are always puzzled when I show up with kids aged 14, 11 and 3. I'm either a very old mother, or a very young grandmother. The 3yo granddaughter looks a lot like my 14 yo dd, so people aways assume they are all mine.

 

I went through the same thing you are going through now. I let dgd be the one to "name" me. We said Grandma a few times, but since dd and ds called me Mama, I think she just went with that.

[i.love.lucy]

My mom is Grammy. My MIL is Gruggy. It's weird, but it's what dh called his grandmother when he was little and couldn't pronounce "grandmother". Eventually he did and it was dropped, but when we got pg and wanted to know what our moms wanted to be called, that's what MIL picked.

 

My grandmother (I only ever had one) was Gram. I guess when I was little it was Gramma or Grandma, but all I ever remember was calling her Gram. I'd like to be Gram one day.:001_wub:

[rootsnwings]

We have Nana & G-ma. Both Great grandmothers are Nanny. I think Avia is awesome!!!!!

[JoyfulMama]

SO I need a name. Grandmommy, Nana and Grammy have all been taken. So what can I be?

 

 

First, congrats!

 

In our families we have had: Grandmama (accent on first, same as PP), Grammy, Nana, MiMi (pronounced Me-Me, same as PP), Mom-Mom, Oma, Nanny, and Granny.

Larger families can easily have grandchildren and children close in age, especially with younger first-time moms. My one aunt was a grandmother at 42, her SIL had her dd at age 42. Does it really make a difference in the grand scheme of things?

[Cinder]

My parents are Grandma Firstname and Grandpa Firstname. In-laws are Gran and George (his middle name--he liked it better than Grandpa or any variations).

 

My grandmother was Nanny and my great-g'ma was Grandma.

[Michelle O. in MO]

Mimi (pronounced me-me).

 

My great-granny was Mimi and great-grandpa Bopi (Baw-peee). I adored them to pieces. None of my other grandparents went by such unique and easy to pronounce names.

[Peela]

I had two granmas when I was growing up- Granma (dad's surname) and Granma (mum's maiden name).

 

My kids have granma (mum's maiden name) and Nanna Elaine (dh's mum)and Nanna Robyn (dad's wife).

[nd293]

Dd settled on "Nanny" for my Mom.

 

"Ouma" (pron. Oh-Ma) means "old mother" and is the Afrikaans word for Grandmother (Dutch and German too, I think).

 

My father had a nephew who was two years older than he was - there was a 20yr gap between my Ouma's first and last child, and my father's oldest brother was married with a child before my father was born.

[Elisabeth in IL]

I'm going to address your second question...... No, it is not weird for you to have another baby that is younger than your grandson. I have 5 cousins that are older than my Uncle. I am only 5 years younger than that Uncle. Perfectly normal in my family! ;)

[Tap]

Also, would it be weird if I had another baby and it's younger than my grandson?

 

My father was a grandfather for 2 years before I was born (he was 47yo). LOL My sister was 22 when she had her son, so I have a nephew who is 2 years older than I am.

 

 

It hasn't been wierd....it is just how it is here.

[milovany]

My mom is [Name of town] Gramma and my mil was Gramma [First name]. My own grandmother was just Gram [Last name.] We called her Gram and Gramma. I want to be something like Mimi or Nonna. My dh will likely be Papa (it fits with his new Orthodox name), so I need something that will go with that.

 

Do you have any Greek blood in you? You could be Yiayia ("ya-ya"). :001_smile:

[DaffodilDreams]

Grams, Grandma, Mammaw

 

I have an uncle three years younger than me. We always thought it was pretty cool - felt kind of special.

[pahansen]

I also had Grandma and Grandpap (Last Names) when I was growing up, but the older (great-grandparent generation) was Baba and Didi (pronounced Bubba and Diddy), which are Slavic.

 

Ironically, when we were pregnant with Thing 1, we let my in-laws (mother and stepmother) know by sending a "Happy Mother's Day, Grandmother" card to both of them with a note at the bottom saying something to the effect of "Let us know what you want the baby to call you." Then we waited for the phone to ring! ;)

 

DH's mom refused to tell us anything. We pestered, we begged, we did what we could. But she was being stubborn in an "I'm too young to be a grandmother" kind of way. (We were 28 and 30 and had been married for seven years when we had our first!) So then we threatened to find the worst grandmother name in the world if she wouldn't pick one herself.

 

Now they're Baba and Didi.

 

(As an aside, I'd be happy as someone's Baba someday. But in Pittsburgh people still know what that is. DH's parents live in Oregon City, OR, and have not an ounce of Slavic blood in them. "Bubba" has a different feel to it there! :lol: )

 

As for having another baby, I don't know that having a new step-grandson would really be an issue in my decision-making process. (Perhaps in my image of myself as a "grandmother," but I could get over that!) If you would like/have planned to have more children, then that answers the question. What decisions your son has made (without including you, for that matter) shouldn't really have a bearing on it.

 

Would it be odd? Well, in today's day and age, yes. But so is having more than 2.3 children in general, and you seem to be doing quite well with that! ;) My mom has an aunt who is only a couple of years older than she; they had a great time growing up and listening to Elvis together! It's just that families are so small now that it doesn't happen much anymore. I was just thinking today that, technically, I could be a grandmother at my age, and here I am having another baby!

 

It's odd. The line is fuzzy now, with some girls getting pregnant at 16 and other women waiting until they're almost 40 to have their first. Today I saw a woman carrying an 18mo at the mall and wondered if she was an older mother or a very young grandmother. I feel like maybe we're coming full-circle, where it just doesn't matter any more. Certainly that must have been what it was like 100 years ago -- my baba had 10 children over 18 years, and my other great-grandmother had 6 -- starting in her early 20s, but the youngest when she was 42. I think that, as a society, we're so used to "planning" our babies that we have no memory of what families were like before that was possible. (Not a judgment, just an observation.)

 

Good luck!

Pamela

Edited February 14, 2011 by pahansen

[KristinaBreece]

Due to a very complicated family dynamic... We have:

 

Mommaw (my late grandmother-- she lived with us, so she's still a frequent topic of conversation)

Poppaw (my grandfather)

Nini (my paternal grandmother--pronounced knee-knee)

GP (my great grandmother)

Granny (DH's grandma)

Grandma First Name & Grandpa First Name (DH's parents)

Poppy & Nana (my dad & step mom)

Not Mom & Pops (my mom & step dad)

 

The kids came up with their own names for their grandparents, and our generation had already named the great grandparents.

[Mama Geek]

I would be real careful about what you are called. Your son married someone without you knowing about it, that sounds like there will not be a lot of harmony. Do you know the mother and get along with her well? Do your son and his wife get along well or are there problems. I am just thinking if things don't work out and this child sees you as a real grandparent it will be devastating for them. Your son and therefore you won't have any legal rights to the baby. I am not saying to keep your distance, I am just suggesting that you be careful.

 

I know I am pessimistic on this, but I have seen it happen way too much. My db is getting ready to marry a girl and there is almost no chance of them making it past the first year. Her kids are going to have a horrible time when it doesn't work out.

[KidsHappen]

Grand children tend to come up with their own version of your name..sometimes it is cuter than whatever you can come up with.

In this case I would think the child might not be ready to jump in and call you Grandma right away...but offer than he/she can call you Grandma ( first name) or Grandma( last name) whatever they are comfortable with makes the most sense to me.

 

Yep, no matter what you tell a two year old to call you, they are going to come up with their own thing. My dgs came up with Mum of his own accord. His mom is mama but I am Mum. We didn't even know he was British.

[Carrie12345]

My grandparents are Grandma/-pa Lastname. My kids' grandparents are Grandma/-pa Firstname.

[NanceXToo]

My kids call my mother "Grandma," they call my husband's step-mother "Grandma Ginger" (Ginger is her first name), and they call my husband's mother "Bubbe" (pronounced bubby, it's a Jewish thing).

 

My oldest niece calls my mother "Nana."

 

And when my grandmother was alive, I called her "Nanny."

[TammyinTN]

Growing up I called them Grandma B and Mama Stella. My adopted grandmother I called her Mama Thornton.

 

Anyday now...I'm going to be called Nana and I can hardly wait. :D

[hsmamainva]

My MIL is Grammy and my mother was Nana, so those get my vote!

[dakarimom5]

I would be real careful about what you are called. Your son married someone without you knowing about it, that sounds like there will not be a lot of harmony. Do you know the mother and get along with her well? Do your son and his wife get along well or are there problems. I am just thinking if things don't work out and this child sees you as a real grandparent it will be devastating for them. Your son and therefore you won't have any legal rights to the baby. I am not saying to keep your distance, I am just suggesting that you be careful.

 

I know I am pessimistic on this, but I have seen it happen way too much. My db is getting ready to marry a girl and there is almost no chance of them making it past the first year. Her kids are going to have a horrible time when it doesn't work out.

:iagree: I just don't want me not accepting this girl and her baby to be one of the reasons they don't work out. I honestly don't know much about her and I know less about the child since he seems to be with her mom quite a bit. I know she is not the type of mother I am since obviously my children are always with me but I am going to try to be nice and not judge her.

[blessed3x]

I think Avia is kind of cool.

 

 

:iagree:

 

I also like "Granna"

[Pippen]

No help on the name--I'm just Grandma. But my two youngest children are younger than four of my grandchildren.

 

Personally I'm just not into cute and sweet grandparent names unless the kids come up with them on their own, so I'd try and be sensitive to that in case you're dealing with that sort of DIL. Given the family situation IMO it would be best to let the parents handle this issue, unless they ask you for suggestions.

 

We use Grandma and Grandpa, and add last names if we need to differentiate.

 

You never know where having a child younger than your grandchild might lead. I have a friend whose daughter went to kindergarten show-and-tell with "My grandma is having a baby!". The teacher called home on that one. ;)

[mommaduck]

I grew up with grandparents, greatgrandparents, and stepgrands & stepgreatgrands:

 

Grandma *last name* (though she wanted us to call her by her first name or Ms *last name* if in public)

Granddad

 

Grandma and Grandpa *last name* (but just Grandpa and Grandma when with them)

 

Mammaw

 

Bapaw and Nana (Nahnah)

 

Papa and Mama (Mehmeh)

 

Grandma *first name*

 

 

 

For my kids, there is:

 

Great Grandma *last name*

Grandma and Grandpa *same last name*

 

Grandma and Grandpa *last name* (these are greats)

 

Grandma *first name* (divorced and doesn't like to use her last name)

 

Papa and Nana (Nanna)

 

Greatgrandpa *first name* and Greatgrandma *first name*

 

Granddad

 

Any grandmother at church (theirs or not) is Yiayia. (yahyah)

 

 

My advice: ask them what they would like the baby to call you ;)

Edited February 14, 2011 by mommaduck

[The Girls' Mom]

We have a Nanny and a Nono in our family.

 

And nah, not weird to have another baby. It's happened several times in my family. My brother is the same age as my oldest. I have a cousin that is older than her uncle, etc.

 

And my other brother is 28, and his stepdaughter just had a baby...making him a 28 year old grandpa. (now THAT is wierd..lol!)

[Dobela]

Grand children tend to come up with their own version of your name..sometimes it is cuter than whatever you can come up with.

In this case I would think the child might not be ready to jump in and call you Grandma right away...but offer than he/she can call you Grandma ( first name) or Grandma( last name) whatever they are comfortable with makes the most sense to me.

My son came up with Nonnah (Rhymes with Donna) and DaDa for my parents. My aunt is called Ninny (the second grandson couldn't say Granny like the oldest) and my uncle is PawPaw. Friends have always called their grandma Oma and grandpa Opa. I was watching an interview with Florence Henderson the other day and she said her grandchildren call her Grandma Flo (or was it Granny Flo?)

 

You might also ask your new DIL what she would like. As you exclaim excitement over being a grandma...

 

I think you are being wise thinking about this. My neice married a man with a child about 18 months old when they married. My SIL just had the boy call her by her first name. Now the child is 7 and my neice is pregnant for the first time. He is quite upset that my SIL is going to let the new baby call her grandma and he doesn't call her that.

[Dobela]

I wanted to add that your situation is not weird although it once happened much more. My grandma is 18 years younger than her oldest sister. My great grandma was in poor health so my grandma was nursed by her sister who also had a baby about the same time.

[TN Mama]

:grouphug:

 

My Mom wanted to be LuLu and my daughter (oldest grandchild) couldn't say her Ls, so now my Mom is ShaSha. It's a name my daughter just came up with when she heard my Dad say Mom's name. Now there are 9 grandchildren calling her that.

 

My grandmother wanted to be Granny, but I (oldest grandchild) couldn't say that and came up with Drindy. More people call her that than her first name.

 

Another cute one is Grand(first name).