Grandma/Grandpa names

[GrammyLuLu]

My step kids call me by my name but grand kids call us Grammie and Grampy!

 

[Diana S.]

My mom took German in HS and college, so she started calling her mom Mutti. That’s essentially mommy I guess. By the time I was born, I used the same name, and my grandmother will always be Mutti. My cousins didn’t get the memo that the FIRST grandchild sets the trend, however, so they all call her Grandie.

My husband’s family is Danish, so his grandmother is MorMor (pronounced MoMo) or mother’s mother. I like the Danish set up a lot. MorFa is mother’s father I think... stuff like that.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

My mom took German in HS and college, so she started calling her mom Mutti. That’s essentially mommy I guess. By the time I was born, I used the same name, and my grandmother will always be Mutti. My cousins didn’t get the memo that the FIRST grandchild sets the trend, however, so they all call her Grandie.

My husband’s family is Danish, so his grandmother is MorMor (pronounced MoMo) or mother’s mother. I like the Danish set up a lot. MorFa is mother’s father I think... stuff like that.

I just noticed this.

MiniSue took German in HS and did a semester in Copenhagen in college...twenty years ago. So, for twenty years, I--her Mexican-American/Italian-American mom--have been Mutti.

She just spent some time there this spring. And her "host mom", with two daughters, uses many Danish expressions that essentially say, "What MorMor says is the law around here."

 

[Diana S.]

I just noticed this.

MiniSue took German in HS and did a semester in Copenhagen in college...twenty years ago. So, for twenty years, I--her Mexican-American/Italian-American mom--have been Mutti.

She just spent some time there this spring. And her "host mom", with two daughters, uses many Danish expressions that essentially say, "What MorMor says is the law around here."

That’s awesome I sometimes wonder if these are terms of endearment that people make up and tell you “oh no, that’s totally German!” because I never ever heard them anywhere else. Happy to feel validated, and warm & fuzzy because it’s a small world.

And yeah, never ever cross MorMor. Danish matriarchs are the top of the food chain

Rock on, Spiky!

 

[Spiky Bugger]

That’s awesome I sometimes wonder if these are terms of endearment that people make up and tell you “oh no, that’s totally German!” because I never ever heard them anywhere else. Happy to feel validated, and warm & fuzzy because it’s a small world.

And yeah, never ever cross MorMor. Danish matriarchs are the top of the food chain

Rock on, Spiky!

This Danish naming system would not work for a little girl we know, though. Her dad's mom and dad divorced, each remarried, his dad relinquished him and step-dad adopted him. Mom and new dad divorced and Mom married again. Adoptive dad died. (He's an only child with 13 half-and step-siblings.)

Meanwhile, her mom's parents never married each other, but her mom's dad married and had other kids.

So...the little girl has four people she calls "Grandma," and two people she calls "Grandpa." But one of the grandmas and one of the grandpas are not legally, because that dad relinquished, related to her.

That language was part of a more structured society.

 

[Diana S.]

This Danish naming system would not work for a little girl we know, though. Her dad's mom and dad divorced, each remarried, his dad relinquished him and step-dad adopted him. Mom and new dad divorced and Mom married again. Adoptive dad died. (He's an only child with 13 half-and step-siblings.)

Meanwhile, her mom's parents never married each other, but her mom's dad married and had other kids.

So...the little girl has four people she calls "Grandma," and two people she calls "Grandpa." But one of the grandmas and one of the grandpas are not legally, because that dad relinquished, related to her.

That language was part of a more structured society.

That’s an incredible amount of family diversity! Well, legal grandparents or bio-grandparents doesn’t matter to the heart (or socially, to be less poetic). In the Danish side of my family, we’ve just made up names. My MIL is YaYa because it’s an easy sign name (her MIL was Deaf and her aunt is too, and both grandsons know some level of sign language). My husband’s ex-wife is Auntie to my son, and we have other aunts and uncles who aren’t blood but are family all the same. If that little girl you speak of has six grandparents, she is a lucky little sprout

 

[Diana S.]

Meanwhile, on my dad’s side of the family, my grandmother was one of eight kids. So family reunions get a bit crowded and confusing. “I’m great auntie Janette’s grandchild... are you great uncle Denny’s? Yeah, Terry’s daughter... Diana... nice to meet you!”