What’s Your Grandma Name?

Brian Lehrer (0:09)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we're going to very much change lanes here for the last few minutes of the show. With your calls on a question every new grandmother has to answer these days, grandfather too. What are the grandkids going to call you? Listeners, grandmothers and grandfathers, or grandparents to be? What do your grandkids call you, or what would you want to be called?

212-433-WNYC, and did you pick the name, or did someone pick it for you, and just start calling you that?

212-433-9692, call or text. Why do I ask? Well, there's a piece in the Washington Post by Stephanie Wotzer, whose first grandchild is due in February. She figured friends would ask if she's excited. Instead, nearly everyone wants to know what her grandma name is gonna be. Nana, Mimi, Gigi, Lovey, Glamour. She has a few months to decide, and she's stumped. And apparently she's not the only one who's agonized over this. Kathy Livingstone once wrote a whole book about it called The Best Grandmother Names Ever. She says the creative name trend started with the baby boomers. They were running companies and running marathons, and they didn't want a name that made anyone picture like an apron, right? So celebrities helped it along, too. Katie Kirk goes by Gogo, because she's always on the go, and Goldie Hawn's grandkids, this says, called her Glamma. The grandpas, meanwhile, according to this, mostly don't care. When one family member asked their grandfather Henry what he wanted to be called, he said Fred, and Fred stuck. I hope his name was actually Fred. Maybe Fred was just some generic name that he wanted to be called, but I don't think so. So, listeners, did you pick a name that says something about you as a grandparent, something fun, something that doesn't sound like a grandma or grandpa, something your friends don't have?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, Nana, call us, Mimi, Gigi, Lovie, Glamour, Gogo, call us, and grandfathers. Did you put in any thought to this or did you just end up as pops? Because people said it. 212-433-WNYC.

Give you just a few more here. The author's sister went with Nana for the family's Italian roots. A woman in Texas chose Unchi, the Lakota word for grandmother Earth, to honor her Lakota Sioux, great-grandmother, Unchi. Others just take the name. They called their own grandmother. One woman in Delaware is Mam Mam, a name she thinks goes back four generations. So you get the idea. What would you like to be called? What are you called? Do you care? Abuelas, call us up. Yayas, call us up. Omas, nanas, call us up.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or text. We'll hear your grandmother, grandpa, grandfather names right after this.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC and OK with inspiration from the Washington Post article on the topic by Stephanie Wurze, whose first grandchild is due in February. Grandparents, what do you want to be called? And what are your grandkids, and I guess their parents, actually call you. Audrey in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Audrey.

SPEAKER_2 (4:08)

Good morning. My grandchildren call me More Mommy.

Brian Lehrer (4:13)

Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_2 (4:14)

I am, it came from my son-in-law. He used it in his family and his mother didn't want it. And she said I could have it. And I have two grandchildren who are two from two, both two years old from two different daughters.

And my daughter said it was adorable. And they trained their children to use it. And they called me that.

SPEAKER_3 (4:33)

More Mommy, More Mommy, Where are you?

SPEAKER_2 (4:34)

More Mommy, wake up.

Brian Lehrer (4:36)

Thank you for calling in More Mommy. And we're going to go next to Dina in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi Dina.

SPEAKER_4 (4:44)

Is that Dina? Possibly.

Brian Lehrer (4:45)

Oh Dina, I apologize. See, I don't know what to call you. Nevermind your grandkids.

SPEAKER_4 (4:50)

Very, very common mistake.

So I wanted Nana, and I was told in no uncertain terms by my daughter and son-in-law, no, you can't have Nana. You could have grandma or boobie. So I went with grandma and I have twin granddaughters, and around the age of three, between three and four, out of the blue, they came up with Nana. So I'm Nana, and I did nothing to get there.

Brian Lehrer (5:17)

But this is a new wrinkle to the whole conversation. You said what you wanted to be called, and you were denied.

SPEAKER_4 (5:25)

Yes, and I got it anyway, which was very satisfying.

Brian Lehrer (5:30)

Dinah, thank you very much for calling us. Kevin in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kevin.

Hello.

SPEAKER_6 (5:38)

So I have a two-year-old and she decided on her own that her grandparents are going to be called Paga and Baka. She just came up with that on her own. We have no idea why.