The transformation of Grandparent names… What’s yours?

When I was born, I was the eldest grandchild of my mother’s parents, Norah and Pat. It was a family joke to call my grandma her first name, even by her own children. As I grew up, I heard everyone calling her Norah and so when I began to baby-speak I thought I would jump on the “Norah” bandwagon and ditch the “Granny” she had planned for me. The only thing was, in my very young and in-comprehensive stage, what came out wasn’t Norah it was “NorNor”. And this name has stuck for all of my siblings and cousins as her grandma name.

While we had our beloved “NorNor”, another family I knew had “Nanny-Phee”. Nanny-Phee was the step-grandmother of these children, however she didn’t want her beautiful step-grandchildren to see divorce as a reason to stop them from being a family just like any other. “Nanny” was her name to her biological grandchildren so using that in her name was important to her.

Another family I knew had “Chippy Pop”. Chippy Pop had been a carpenter for all his life and was known to many family and friends as Chip or Chippy. He wanted his grandchildren to always see him as a friend and so rather than going along the traditional lines of “Pop” he had his own special take on the name.

As you can see, grandparent names are evolving and moving away from the traditional names such as Grandma and Grandpa. While some choose to remain with tradition, factors such as the changing family structure, unique family traits or stories or even culture and heritage are playing a bigger part in the names we choose today.

Late last year, BabyCenter released a report stating that 41% of Grandma’s use an individualised name and 28% of Grandpa’s do too. Currently, Grandma and Grandpa are still the most common names with 48% of grandparents opting for the traditional name.

Websites such as GrandParents.com have entire pages dedicated to choosing a Grandparent name and have even categorised them into traditional, trendy, playful, international and celebrity. So if you’re having trouble choosing your grandparent name, you can always go there! For many families, choosing a grandparent name is a combined task between the grandparents, parents and like in NorNor’s case, even the grandchildren.

Tell us, what is your grandparent name and where did it come from? Have you heard of any great names before?