Comments on: Who’s your grandmother?

By: Little Willow

Little Willow — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:14:49 +0000

Justine: America.

By: monena

monena — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:50:45 +0000

I currently live in Dallas Texas. Both sides of my family have been in Texas a few hundred years (can trace back to early 1800’s) and my grandmothers are Nanny and Nana, my great-grand parents are Ma-maw and Papaw, and my mother goes by Noni. These are all well used names through the generations. One side of the family is predominately English and the other is predominately Welch, but we are completely Anglo-Saxon muts.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:12:08 +0000

On my mother’s side grandmothers are either ‘Nana’ or ‘Nanny. I’ve wondered if that was a Danish thing, a Danish-American thing, or a Californian thing…

By: Libby

Libby — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:04:37 +0000

I’m from New York/New England, with the usual WASP-y inputs (French, German, Scots, English, Dutch…). My mother’s parents were Grandma and Grandpop, father’s Grandmother and Granddaddy. My neighbors here in VA call one grandmother Mee-maw and the grandfather Pa-paw (or Papa?). That side of the family is from Ohio, with mostly WASPy forebears…

By: megan crewe

megan crewe — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:50:59 +0000

Missed this before–

My brother and I call our grandparents “Grandma” and “Grandpa”. Both sides of our family has been in eastern Canada for a couple generations and before that our background is various shades of British (English/Scottish/Welsh).

By: karen

karen — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:00:04 +0000

Belatedly… my family is from New York and New England. I had a Grandma and Papa, and a Grammy and Pop. My son has a Grandma, a Grammy, and Zayde, and his grandparents in Sweden are Farfar and Farmor (literally “father’s father” and “father’s mother”).

By: Lily

Lily — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:58:38 +0000

I had a Nanna and Grandad, a Noni,
a Grandma and a Grandpa.

By: Andrew Wheeler

Andrew Wheeler — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:40:35 +0000

my own grandparents were boring: both sets were just “grandma” and “grandpa” (with last name added, if necessary, for clarity).

however, my wife had a grandma and a nanna, to keep them separate. The nanna was of danish extraction in New Jersey, for what that’s worth.

(my own kids have two grandmas, one “poppy” and a grand-dad.)

By: ariel cooke

ariel cooke — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:15:20 +0000

my husband is from kentucky and called his maternal grandparents “mah-maw” and “pa-paw” (with a broad first a like cat). they were scots-german. his paternal grandmother was known as “mimi.” they were mixed british isles descent. i am a new york jew and boringly called my grandparents grandma and grandpa. but my great-grandmother was bubbe.(yiddish.)

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:24:55 +0000

barb (#119): yia-yia is a fantastic grandmother name. That’s what I called my grandmother (because we’re Greek), and my grandfather was called papouli (papou is also common, but papouli seems a more affectionate derivative). I also lived for a long time in New Orleans, and noticed there most kids call their grandparents maw -maw and paw-paw.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:09:16 +0000

i am from the appalachain region of North carolina. My grandmother is mammaw and my grandfather was pappaw (pep-paw). This seems to be fairly common in the region and i have heard it is related to the scots-irish descent of most of the residents.

By: barb

barb — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:32:30 +0000

this is so interesting. my grandson is 19 months and we’re still not sure what I should be called. we’ll have some ideas now.
my latest have been yia yia (greek) marj or wench.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:09:28 +0000

Cheshire (North West UK) and I called both mine Nana, as did my wife who is from the South East of the UK

By: Kadie-Wa

Kadie-Wa — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:10:04 +0000

Oh, sorry this is a little delayed, but I’m from Minnesota.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:48:30 +0000

My grandmothers were both “Grandma,” my grandfathers were “Grandpa” and “Granddad.” I grew up in Oklahoma, where I knew a few kids who called their grandmothers meemaw.

Someone I work with is a grandmother and her grandkids call her MeeMee. I’ve never heard that one before.

By: emerging writer

emerging writer — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:57:15 +0000

I called my grandparents Grandma and Grandpa (English and class conscious). My kids call my parents Granny and Grandad (English) and my husband’s side Nana and Grandad (West Cork Irish)
My dad called his dad pop which I always thought was strange.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:05:15 +0000

Grandma= Gammy or Gam

Didn’t have a grampa, but I understand my older cousins called him something that sounded like pop-aw

By: Mahek

Mahek — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:43:43 +0000

I’m fron pakistan but i live in england. i never saw them but when i refer to them, i say nan or nana and granddad, granddaddy or grandpa.

Mee-maw!!!

By: Roda

Roda — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:23:06 +0000

I’m Middle Eastern (Assyrian) and I call my grandmother “nana” too!

By: keri

keri — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:15:16 +0000

I’m from Texas

grandmothers were grandma and granny
grandfathers were grandpa and paw-paw
“mee-maw” was used heavily by friends and neighbors, though.
my cousins’ children call their grandma “mimi”

By: joeln

joeln — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:01:44 +0000

I’m from Vermont, from a mostly french-canadian family. On one side, we use “papa” and “mamie”(which we say like eisenhower, but i’ve heard other, frencher families say it more like may-may, or with aigus over the e’s). and on the other side, we say “pa” and “ma”. (that side is much more strongly a farming family–i don’t know if that’s related, but it sounds so kansas. my partner is philadelphia-italian, and they say “grandpop” and “grandmom.”

By: Sali

Sali — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:32:21 +0000

Not that you need another answer but I’m from the UK and I called my grandmothers Nana when I was younger and Nan when I got to my teens. Grandfathers were Grandad.

By: Faith

Faith — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:25:33 +0000

I’m from Texas, and I called my dad’s mother Grannie, and my mom’s mother Dee-dee (which was her nickname). My husband, who’s from upstate New York, called his grandmother nana.

(and for the record, i called one grandfather Granddad and the other was Bad-bad–a nickname that resulted when one of his grandchildren was chewing him out and called him a bad-bad-granbad.)

By: Caryle

Caryle — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:08:54 +0000

I’m finally being drawn out of lurkersville by this post; aren’t regional language quirks interesting?

I spent my first eight years in the middle of Illinois and am of English/Scots-Irish/German descent. As a little girl, I called my paternal grandparents Me-maw and Papa. My maternal grandmother was Nanny; unfortunately, my other grandpa passed away before I was born.

As I’ve lurched into adulthood, Nanny has morphed into Gramma because calling her nanny had started to feel a bit silly.

By: larry

larry — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:51:09 +0000

I’m a Jewish guy from Los Angeles, CA – all my grandparents are Polish.

I made up my own names. I was disturbed by the lack of specificity in the terms Grandma and Grandpa. I called the maternal grandparents Ma’sma & Ma’spa. The paternal grandparents were Pa’sma and Pa’spa. Pronounced long, as in Ma & Pa.