My beautiful girls call my mom an unique name. I’m not so sure if she ever thought she would be called this when she was a grandparent, but it warms my heart that my girls came up with this ever so cute name on their own. My girls call my mom Yay-Yay! Yes… you heard me right :). Now, you see how this name came about is very interesting. When M was about 6 months old, my mom would call M on the phone and go yayayayayayayayay over and over to her on the phone. She did this until M was well over a year old because M would just crack up and do the cutest little baby laugh. Mom was over at our house one day and M out of the blue looked at my mom and said plain as day Yay-Yay. Her little mind put two and two together that she was the woman that always did Yay-Yay to her so that must be her name right? Ever since that day, my mom has been known as Yay-Yay to the girls. When L was born and old enough to talk, she naturally just started calling mom Yay-Yay as well. Is that not just the cutest story?
Now let’s just say if you gather a group of young kids today and ask them what they call their grandparents…. you are going to get a different answer from each one. You’re bound to encounter the run-of-the-mill Grandmas and Grandpas, but things really start getting interesting once the Gramies, Lulus, Gagas and Boo-boos start popping up. Where did all these names come from? Are the grandparents planting them? Is it just a matter of young kids butchering the annunciations? Regardless of origin, the nicknaming of grandparents has taken on a life of its own, and as a result BabyCenter has published the top 10 most popular names from grandparents:
Popular Grandmother Names:
Grandma
Nana
Grammy
Granny
Mimi
Gram
Nanny
Oma
Mamaw
Gran
Popular Grandfather Names:
Grandpa
Papa
Granddad
Gramps
Pop-Pop
Poppy
Papaw
Pop
Opa
Pappy
In addition to the top ten, BabyCenter also collected dozens of other sweet, fun and downright odd names while compiling the list that can be found here.
What does your kids call their grandparents? I would love to see if it falls into the top ten from above or is unique to your family :).
This post is very timely. 18 years ago when my first niece and nephew were born, one of them started calling my in-laws Gaga and Papa. When my first son was born 7 years ago, it was made VERY clear to me that I was expected to call them Gaga as well. I CAN’T STAND IT! Sorry for shouting, but it keeps coming up every time we get together, which included this weekend. Grown kids calling her Gaga is driving me crazy. Besides that, she introduces herself to the kids friends as “I’m their Gaga” like it’s title or something. Sorry for the rant. It’ just drives me nuts 🙂
We’re fairly boring here – somewhat. Both grandmas and both grandpas are just that – ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grandpa’. What gets interesting is how my girls differentiate between them though. My mom is ‘Grandma with the white hair’ and Ron’s mom is ‘Grandma with the brown hair’. LOL Abby started that one on her own – we never really knew how to use different names for them. Ron’s dad is ‘Grandpa’ and my dad is ‘Grandpa Al’. If we’re referring to ‘Grandma and Grandpa’ together it always means Ron’s parents since they are still married and my parents aren’t. I guess we don’t have terribly creative or cute names for them, but the girls always know who we’re talking about. 🙂
Over here, it’s in Hebrew, so they use the Saba and Savta (Grandpa and Grandma) – not very creative by local standards 😉
That is such a sweet name for your mom! 🙂
My kids use plain, old granparent names, but they do call my dad “Gray Pa,” much to his chagrin!
Your mom has a nice name…
harish@back pain exercises to reduce pain
It’s really interesting. My neighbour has a granddaughter and she call her grandparents as bubu and buba. It’s really funny but also very sweet to hear from her in her sweet voice.
We’re still waiting for Aiden to make up his mind. He used to call one Grama “Me-Maw” and the other “Grama”. But then he flipped that. And then he called both “Grama”. Then both “Me-Maw”. Thankfully they live in different states so it’s pretty easy to figure out who he’s talking about. He only has one Grampa and I think he calls him “Pee-Paw”. Then his great grandparents he calls Nana and PopPop.
What a sweet story!! My mother in law was already named, by my nephew who was born a few years prior. She is “Gran,” My mom is “Grandma” and my step mom is “Nana.” My dad wanted to be called “Papa”, and his name is John, so now his name is “Papa John.” The kids think of him every time we go by a Papa John’s Pizza!
over here they call as daddu/amma….
hm@Livre Travel Site
Dada/dadi..
hgm@privatlaan
dadu/amma..
mhg@ insurance orlando
Your article is interesting…
mhg@shoemoney system
Nice article. Some of the name were completely unknown to me. I used the simple plain granpa and granma for them. As I was hungry kid I probably ate the d from the grand… 🙂
The story in the article is so sweet..a good one indeed….
mhg@freebabysamplesbymail
Very interesting article some of the names were not too familar to me..good one…
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