The Grandfather Moniker Dilemma

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

Perhaps the greatest of my many misunderstandings about the nature of grandparent life is thinking I could not pick my own grand moniker. I can, and there are lots of options.

I have friends with family/ethnic/regional legacies who use names other than “grandma” and “grandpa.” For many generations, my Greek friends have used “yaya” and “papou.” For Italians, its “nonna” and “nonno.” In the American south, it’s “memaw” and “pepaw.” And in Hawaii, “tutu wahine” and “tutu kane.”

Absent such a heritage or tradition, however, I never really believed I could pick a different grand nickname. Then I did some research. Googled articles explain why I can follow another path. The New York Times and Washington Post even call it a trend.

One article said a lot of my fellow baby boomers grands (I am in the caboose of that generational train) associate the traditional names with old folk. They see wrinkled women with gray hair buns and bald stooped-over men with canes. Because the new grands run marathons or do cross fit, they do not want an “old person” moniker.

Another article said certain grands just want to break with tradition, so they pick newfangled and unique names. Some of them also want to stand out and be distinct from still-living great grandparents, who often use the well-established and traditional nicknames.

A third reason for new names emerges from the developing language skills of the grandchildren themselves. Many toddlers just learning to speak either cannot pronounce or end up mangling the traditional names. Some of these unintended derivations are quite cute, so they stick.

From these three basic motivations, a wide variety of new grand names have emerged. Some I found for grandma are nana; mimi; gigi; gaga; lola; oma; mimsy; duchy; glam-ma (thanks Goldie Hawn); babs; and bella. Here are the ones for grandpa: papaw; pop-pop; grumps; lolo; opa; bobo; grand-dude (not from The Big Lebowski); and pappy.

Some of the possible new nicknames do not obviously apply to a particular grand gender, for example: gung; marmee; bebop; and zippy. I also found some that are hyper genderized: grand-babe and grand-stud. (OK, I made those up those last two.)

I thought long and hard about all these tantalizing options. Many of the Irish call their grands “móraí” and “daideo” but I am quite weak on the Gaelic pronunciations and feared the consequences of inflicting that on our new little persons. There are no real cute derivations of my two names, Michael (Mik-Mik? Mickey-moo? M&M and Eminen both are taken) or Patrick (PattyPa? Pat-ree-ark is not PC. PP sounds like a bodily fluid).

I think it’s great that grands have choices—even bad ones like mine—and can select a grand moniker that works best under a diversity of settings and variety of circumstances, including for the reasons outlined above. So what did I pick?

Call me traditional. Call me boring. Call me unoriginal. Call me uninspiring.

Call me Grandpa Mike.

*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.