Anonymous wrote:The people I know who did this including my parents did so because they thought grandma and grandpa sounded too old.

This is how I feel (I'm 45 and my 22 year old daughter is having a baby next year). I am not ready to be called "grandma"... but can't stand these cutesy names people are using.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:too cool for school those Mimi's and Papa's and Grammy's and Nan's and Dede's.

it all gets handed down...

In my family there is a reason why there are different names for grandparents: When my oldest was born (20 years ago), I still had 2 grandmothers (Nana and Grandma) and one grandfather (Grandpa) alive and well. So my mother decide to go by Grammy and my father decided he would be "Pa," which is what he called his own grandfather when he was a child (in the 1940s). (Actually, everyone called my great-grandfather "Pa," both his children and his grandchildren.) My DC1 couldn't say "Grammy" and instead pronounced it "Mimi." That name stuck and now all my mother's grandchildren call her that. (This is also how my BF's kids started calling their grandmother "MeMaw"--that's how the oldest grandchild (now 28) pronounced "grandma.")

FTR, I called one of my grandmother's "Nana." I grew up in New England and knew a lot of kids in the 60s and 70s who called their grandparents "Nana" and "Papa."

I find it hilarious when people think these names are trendy or trying to be cool.

I agree that grandparents have been called things like Nana and Papa and Mimi and Opa and whatnot forever. (I'm married to a guy whose family is from Maine, and the grandmother in that family has always been Nana. My kid has a grandma and a grandpa and a nana and a papa.) I just think it's silly to try to change the name a decade in. I feel like, you get to decide when the first grandchild is born (although that grandchild may bestow a name on you) and that's it.

I've never heard of Mimi and papa

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope your kids just keep calling them Grandma and Grandpa.

+1. If gramps and gran don't agree, have the kids tell them "you may now call me "apple" and her "seven". See if they want to call the grandkuds by new names.

OP here. This is great, I am not going to say anything at this point. The kids found the name change strange but there hasn't been an explanation from the grandparents. Our kids rarely see them and they don't face time with them etc. I don't care about the nickname but after 20+ years it just feels a little "fake" to change. If they really feel it necessary to change, I will expect my kids to be respectful and go with it but if they don't, I am staying out of it.

Anonymous wrote:Why is this only a thing for grandparents to have a "name"?? Parents don't seem to have special names like this. IMO grandma and grandpa have a definition.

My MIL is trying for "Gigi" but that's a dog name in my opinion.

My mom is Gigi. I love it. Her first grandkids have four grandmothers (grandparents divorced, gdads both remarried) so she wanted something to stand out a little. It fits perfectly.

Anonymous wrote:Why is this only a thing for grandparents to have a "name"?? Parents don't seem to have special names like this. IMO grandma and grandpa have a definition.

My MIL is trying for "Gigi" but that's a dog name in my opinion.

Of course parents have names like this: Mother, Mom, Mommy, Mama, Big Mama, Mum, Mum mum, Mummy, Ma, Maw. Father, Dad, Daddy, Pa, Paw, Papa, Da, Big Daddy, Pop.

My oldest niece started calling my mom "Ninny" (mispronouncing her given name, Nancy). Mom put her foot down on that one. Lucky for her, it didn't stick!

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mimi and Papa are not a Southern thing.

Agree. Not southern at all. MaMaw and PaPaw are southern. Although we are from Mississippi and our grandbaby calls us Grammy and Granddaddy.

I always thought it was a Jewish or maybe Yiddish thing. The branch of my family that is Jewish uses these names for the wife's parents.

I'm Jewish, never heard these names before. Grandpa and grandma in Hebrew is saba and savta, Yiddish is bubbie and zeide.

Yeah, all the Jewish grandparents I know are called one of those names, not Mimi and Papa.

NP here & I call my Jewish grandmother Mimi & my grandfather (her husband, who is Christian) Papa. They grew up in France so when I was a kid I always figured Mimi & Papa were French grandparent nicknames, not Jewish ones, but they may very well be neither.

Anonymous wrote:too cool for school those Mimi's and Papa's and Grammy's and Nan's and Dede's.

it all gets handed down...

In my family there is a reason why there are different names for grandparents: When my oldest was born (20 years ago), I still had 2 grandmothers (Nana and Grandma) and one grandfather (Grandpa) alive and well. So my mother decide to go by Grammy and my father decided he would be "Pa," which is what he called his own grandfather when he was a child (in the 1940s). (Actually, everyone called my great-grandfather "Pa," both his children and his grandchildren.) My DC1 couldn't say "Grammy" and instead pronounced it "Mimi." That name stuck and now all my mother's grandchildren call her that. (This is also how my BF's kids started calling their grandmother "MeMaw"--that's how the oldest grandchild (now 28) pronounced "grandma.")

FTR, I called one of my grandmother's "Nana." I grew up in New England and knew a lot of kids in the 60s and 70s who called their grandparents "Nana" and "Papa."

I find it hilarious when people think these names are trendy or trying to be cool.

Anonymous wrote:Why is this only a thing for grandparents to have a "name"?? Parents don't seem to have special names like this. IMO grandma and grandpa have a definition.

My MIL is trying for "Gigi" but that's a dog name in my opinion.

One reason I think is that most kids have multiple ggrandmother & grandfathers but not only one mother and one father (there are exceptions, of course). Different nicknames for grandparents are a way to distinguish between them that is more familiar sounding than, say, Grandma Jones vs Grandma Smith & less potentially offensive than something descriptive like Bald Grandpa vs Hairy Grandpa or Skinny Grandma vs Chubby Grandma.

Anonymous wrote:To me, Papa = father, so I would not be too happy about that one. I'd offer up 'Grand-Papa' as a comprise.

Papa sounds like an older man to me, so it wouldn't bother me as a grandfather name. As a name for a dad, it seems like something from the 1800s or maybe a European custom. In the US in contemporary times, I've heard it more often as a name for a grandfather.

Anonymous wrote:I hope your kids just keep calling them Grandma and Grandpa.

+1. If gramps and gran don't agree, have the kids tell them "you may now call me "apple" and her "seven". See if they want to call the grandkuds by new names.

To me, Papa = father, so I would not be too happy about that one. I'd offer up 'Grand-Papa' as a comprise.

My MIL wanted me to call her "Mutti" when we got married.

I absolutely refused.

The people I know who did this including my parents did so because they thought grandma and grandpa sounded too old.