My maternal grandparents were "Grandma” and "Grandpa and my paternal grandmother was “Grandma.” When we were discussing them then it would be “Grandma/pa LastName.”
When my father was five or six, his father took off and wasn’t heard of for the longest time, until he asked for a divorce to get Version II. He apparently showed little to no interest in my father and two aunts. I only met him once when he came through Salt Lake City and stopped by our house for maybe 30 minutes. He showed absolutely no interest in his grandchildren either. I don’t remember either greeting him or being greeted.
My children have “Grandma” and then call their Taiwanese grandparents by the Taiwanese titles. My father fortunately is already deceased, so the kids don’t have to worry about calling him “You f$cking Piece of Sh!t”
My maternal grandfather was killed by a rabbit in WWI and my maternal grandmother died from complications of her house falling on her in WWII. I never met or named either of them.
I called my paternal grandparents, Nanna & Pop Pop (never Pop Pop & Nanna).
My kids called my parents, Nanny & Poppy (never Poppy & Nanny). I wanted them to call me, Pops, but it never stuck (they call me Dad—boring!).
If my kids have kids, I want them to call me, Poppidy Pop Pop. I like that name and it reminds me of popcorn popping.
I never met my maternal grandmother, and my maternal grandfather died when I was young.
My paternal grandparents I enjoyed visiting, and they were Granny and Grampa/Grandpa (pronounced “Grampa,” not sure what spelling most people used.)
When members of my family were talking about my maternal grandparents, we’d call them Granny (mother’s maiden name) or Grandpa (mother’s maiden name) to distinguish them from my dad’s parents.
My paternal grandparents and my maternal grandfather all died when I was rather young. All I remember calling any of them is “Gramma” and “Granpa”. I called my maternal grandmother “Grammaree”, because her name was “Marie”, so the portmanteau was easy. Her great-grandchildren called her “Gammy” or “Gammy Ree”.
I wonder if this could have been influenced by “Oma” (German for “granny”)?
My grandparents were born in the 1900’s and 1910’s…we called them either Grandma or Grandpa for the most part. At some point, my sister and I started calling my father’s father “Poppy” which he loved, but for some reason my mother thought was disrespectful. I don’t even know where it came from, but he liked it, so we kept doing it. Sadly, he passed away when we were still quite young.
When talking to other family members and referring to our grandparents, we used Grandma or Grandpa <Lastname>.
My paternals were Papa and Itis. Maternal grandma was MaHall.
My kids grandparents wanted to be Papa and Grandma and Pap and Nana. My oldest couldn’t pronounce that as a near infant and the grandmothers latched on to his baby talk, so Grandma is now “WeeWaw” and Nana is “Deta.” The grandfathers held firm.
No, I don’t think, for us at least, that Oma transformed into Old Ma. Nobody in the family that was left spoke German, although Grandpa, her husband, had. By the time great-grandkids came he was gone for some years. I think Old Ma was how one of the earliest great grand kids called her name.
I would address my Irish grandparents as Grandmother and Grandfather, my Sicilian grandparents as Nonna and Nonnu. My Sicilian cousins called them Grandma and Grandpa, but my parents taught my sisters and me to use the Sicilian words.
My paternal grandparents were Abuelito and Abuelita, diminutives of the standard Spanish abuelo and abuela. My maternal grandparents’ titles were regional: he (whose first language was Spanish) was adressed by the Catalan-language Avi, whereas she (whose first language was Catalan) was addressed by the NE-Spanish regionalism Yaya; I’m not sure if they somehow labeled each other or just didn’t think about it. I had Basque-speaking friends whose Basque-speaking grandparents were Amona (she) and Aitona, and the non-Basque-speaking ones were Abuelito and Abuelita same as mine.
I only remember one grandparent, and she was Grandma. Two others died when I was very young, too young to recall them I guess but old enough to have called them something…wonder what it was?
My daughter called both of her grandfathers Papa. To distinguish them she appended the first name, which was…the same in both cases. Eventually one became Grandpa.
My grandson age 2 calls me Pop Pop. I have a shirt that says “pop pop…because I’m too cool to be called Grandpa.”
My mother’s parents both died long before I was born. My father’s parents were Mommo and Poppo. All of them were born in the 1800s. My parents were called Gradma and Pop Pop by their grandkids.
My grandmother on my Mom’s side was English (as in living in London). She was “grandma”. If my grandfather had been alive, he would have probably been called “grandpa”.
My grandmother on my father’s side was Greek. She was “γιαγιά” (pronounced yai-ya), which is just Greek for grandmother. The Greek word for grandather is “παππούς” (pappous). My grandmother and grandfather came to the U.S. from Greece around 1920. My father spoke Greek until he went to kindergarten, at which point he had to learn English rather quickly.
My grandmother called me “κούκλα” (koukla) which means “little friend”. Technically, κούκλα translates to “doll”, but it is commonly used to mean little friend, or darling, or sweetheart, depending on the context.
Due to death and divorce, I had multiple grandparents. Paternal: Grandpa first name, step-grandmother was Granny (+ sometimes first name). Maternal: Grandpa (usually first name, sometimes surname) and first name (step-grandmother, who would leave the house when we arrived for the monthly visit, due to some issue with my mother), and Grandma surname and step-grandfather Grandpa first name (adored him, didn’t really like that grandma much). Also had paternal great grandparents, who were Great Grandpa (my dad referred to him as Granddad) and Great Grandma.
My grandson is just starting to talk, will probably call me Grammy first name. The stepgrandchildren call me by first name, as they are older and I haven’t been in their lives that long. I didn’t know what I wanted to be called, and nixed a few suggestions. Meemaw was out of the question, although I did call my great grandmother that when I was very young.
My sister was greatly offended that one of her daughter’s children use Grandma surname and (step)Grandpa surname for them, as she contends that’s what we called the grandmother we didn’t like (maternal), and that is pretty obviously the case in her situation as well. The other daughter’s child, who is living with them, calls them Mimi and Pawpaw, and they are happy with that.
