I knew only one set of grandparents: my father’s mother and my mother’s father (who were married to each other. I called them Grandma and Grandpa.
Maternal: Grandpa, and Grandma (I never knew my grandma, she passed away before I was born, but I was lucky to know my great-grandmother).
Paternal: Granddad and Nanna. They were from Indiana, I don’t know anyone personally who calls their grandfather this. I know it exists, but is this relatively uncommon? Google reveals mostly just dictionary results.
While I know that ‘Nanna’ isn’t an uncommon name for a grandmother it came from my love as bananas as a child and my inability to pronounce them. My love of my grandmother and bananas morphed together in some weird hybrid and became, ‘Nanna.’ All my siblings and cousins called her, “grandmother” though. I am the odd duck.
An interesting one I forgot: My El Salvadorian sister-in-law and her family called her 93 year old, under 5’ grandmother Yoda! “Yoda” didn’t speak English and I don’t believe she ever watched Starwars . But as soon as she became a grandmother in the late 1970s she was given this new title. She was very old and wise, so I suppose it fit pretty well.
Paternal grandmother: “Nanny”. She lived with us, and we were really close. I don’t actually know why we called her Nanny as opposed to anything else. I had an older brother so the name Nanny was set before I came along.
Maternal grandmother: “Grandmother”. She didn’t like the sound of “ma” thinking it sounded too harsh. She preferred the word “Mother” because she thought it sounded nicer. She also named every single one of her cats Buttons, from the time my mom was a kid to the time she died.
As for grandfathers, they both died before I got to call them anything. My maternal grandfather died way before I was born, and my paternal grandfather died 6 months after I was born. My brother called him “Poppy” so I guess that’s what I would have ended up calling him as well.
Granny/Gran’pa [surname] for my maternals,
Gran’pa [surname] for my paternal grandpa
Ouma (Afrikaans for Granma, literally “Old Mother”) for my dad’s mom.
Nonna and Nonno.
Maternal grandparents were Grandmother and Granddaddy. Paternal side was Granny and Granddaddy. My parents grandparents (I didn’t know them) tended to be be MawMaw and PawPaw this or that. Born and raised in Georgia, USA.
On my dad’s side Pop-pop and grandma. On my mom’s grandma and granddad.
Paternal grandparents were Grandma and Grandfather.
Maternal grandparents were Nan and Pop.
Now my daughter calls my parents Nanna and Pa. My Nan is still alive, and she’s become Nanny Jean to my daughter.
Born and raised in Australia.
On moms side of the family it was granmo and granpo
on dads side it was granddad and grandmother
Bubby (yiddish for grandmother) and Zeyde (yiddish for grandfather)
My maternal grands were Grandma and Grandpa. My paternal grands died before I was born (Dad married later in life).
When my first child was imminent, my mom chose Omi. My dad died when I was young so he didn’t really get a name.
The best thing to do is to ask the soon-to-be-grandparents what they would like to be called, but sometimes the grandchild chooses and will not be denied. My husband and I were going to be Gramma and Grampa to our grandchildren, but when Number One Grandson could talk, he decided we were going to be Doodah (me) and Poopah. He was cool with Nana and Poppa for the other grandparents, but refused to acknowledge our choice, and his names for us stuck through the other four grandbabies.
My husband’s mom got the same treatment from her daughter’s daughter. MIL wanted to be Nagymama (it’s Hungarian), but now she’s Mo. Sometimes you get to pick; sometimes you don’t.
Dad’s mom was Mama Smith and Mom’s mom was Bertha. Bertha was too much fun to be called anything else.
Well, I never knew my grandfathers, both of whom died when I was only about 2, so I didn’t call them anything directly. But when referring to them:
Mom’s parents were Gramma and Grampa
Pop’s parents were Bubbe and Zayde.
I’m not sure why one side got the Yiddish terms and the others didn’t, though I must say it seems to be a pretty clever way of distinguishing them.
I had a Nanny and Pawpaw on my mom’s side and a Momsi and Popsi on my dad’s side.
Paternal grandmother was Muz. Maternal grandmother was Nana. Both grandfathers were out of the picture by the time I was talking.
My mom’s mom was Marmee, like the mother in the book Little Women. My mom’s father and stepfather were both Pap, with her father getting his proper name attached to draw a distinction. My mom’s stepmother was always just her name, Rose.
My father’s father was gone before I was born. My father’s mother was Meemee to all of her grandkids. Her father was still around until I was 10 or so, we called him Granddad.
The best grandparent pet-names I have ever heard of: An older couple I went to church with when I was a kid - their first names were Frances and Granville, and they usually called themselves “Gran & Fran” which was kinda cute on it’s own. But their grandchildren called them GranGran and GranFran. Awesome.
Anyway, my mom’s parents were kinda stodgy and preferred formalities. Grandmother and Grandfather, heaven forbid you called them anything else, or even mentioned such “trashy” options as Mee Maw and Pee Paw. It was fun to tease them and tell them I was going to start calling them Gee Gaw and Hee Haw, and watch the eyes roll.
My dad’s parents lived far away and died before I was out of my teens, but on the rare occasion that we did see them, they were Grandpa & Grandma. Grandma’s mother was still alive into my teens as well, and I saw her even less frequently, but she was Great Grandma.
My husband calls his grandmother Nanny, which is what I call her as well, even though she never looked after me when I was a kid, hehe. My kids call her Nanny also. Somehow Great-Nanny just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
My kids call my parents Grammy & Grampy and they call my husbands parents Mimi and Pappy. My kids distinguish between my dad (who’s not real big on kids) and my husband’s dad (who LOVES kids) by calling them Grumpy Grampy and Happy Pappy.
For me, it was always just Gramma, or Gramma Lastname if it wasn’t clear from context. Paternal grandfather was Grampa, but maternal was Grampap.
My sister’s kids, though, have three “grandmothers”: Our mom, their dad’s mom, and our mom’s mom (technically great-grandmother). Our mom is “Gigga”, since she was the closest when they were in the baby-talk stage; great-grandmother is Mazzy (that being what Grampap used to call her), and their paternal grandmother is just “Gramma”. There’s only one grandfather still in the picture (paternal), but I’m not sure what they call him.
Paternal Side: Grandma and Grandpa.
Maternal Side: Grandma and Grandpa. Then at age 16, Grandpa asked me to start calling him “Sam” (his name), which I did up until the day he died.