Recently, I was at the playground with my daughter and it was time for her to reapply sunscreen, so I called her by her nickname, which repeated the first two letters of her name. “Gigi! Come on honey! A beautiful woman in her fifties or early sixties was in high spirits as she trotted over dutifully. “Gigi? That’s what my grandchildren call me! Just At this point, another woman of a similar age and description joined us. “Is her name Gigi? So cute: that’s my grandma’s name!”
This interaction was sweet, but it did make me think: Where have all the “grandmas” been these days? My own children have a “Nonnie” and a “Mimi” – their “grandma” is my own grandmother. My friends’ kids also seem to prefer new words like “Lolly and Pop” or “Nini” and “Bumpy” or “Perepere” and “Taters.” Hell, my friends’ kids call them their baby boomer grandparents. What happened to “Grandma” and “Grandpa”?
But maybe it’s my imagination. Maybe I was just focusing on the few weird nicknames and forgot about it, no. most People will choose “Grandma”, “Grandpa”, “Nana” and “Poppy”. So I did what any millennial non-scientist would do to find out: I launched two informal public polls on Facebook, asking respondents what they call their grandparents and what they call their children their grandparents.
These questions generated over 300 responses, reflecting what I’ve seen in the real world. The vast majority of people older than Generation Z/Alpha refer to their grandparents as “Grandma and Grandpa” or, to a lesser extent, “Nana and PopPop” or “Meemaw and PawPaw.”
This is not to say that there are No Variations from previous generations. In fact, I found some real gems – “Grumpy,” “Graham Crackers,” “Dad doesn’t have a beard” and”Dad with a mustache” and (my personal favorite) “Grandma Goose.” But all in all, only about a dozen people said they called their grandparents anything other than Grandma/Grandpa or Nana/Poppy, and many of them were related to their ethnicity (Bubbe and Zayde, Nonna and Nonno, Babushka and Dedushka). However, among the younger generation, I’m pretty much bombarded with 70 Grandparents have different names – only 15 are grandmother and grandfather.
I no Imagine things. The grandmothers haven’t left yet, but their status is losing to “Mimi”, “Jiji” and “Nanny”.
TikTok has noticed this, too. There are dozens of videos for grandparents and new parents looking for a good grandparent nickname. (This is especially true for expectant grandmothers.)
There’s even some politics surrounding choosing a grandparent’s nickname…
There’s also plenty of content for Millennial and Gen Z kids to poke fun at the proliferation of “new” grandparent names.
And, apparently, as the British comedian proves, this phenomenon isn’t limited to the United States.
But what happened to prompt this? How do we go from assuming someone will be one of a handful of grandparent names to choosing a milestone? I have some theories. First, name Generally speaking More diverse than ever. I bet you had a few elementary school classes that included Jennifer, Jen P., and Jen F. Upside. However, as of last year, Olivia, the most popular name for girls, accounted for less than 0.9% of girls’ names that year. Simply put, people are better at thinking outside the box these days, and we offer a wider variety of names. It seems this may extend to new grandparents as well.
Another theory? I say this with great love, affection, and respect: Our parents, as a group, don’t want to admit that they are getting older. In my poll, a large group of people spontaneously told me that their parents specifically avoided the more traditional names of their grandparents because it made them feel old. Of course, this new batch of Jiggis and Grumpy look livelier, more active, and definitely younger than the previous Nana and Poppy. (If you remember, Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose golden girl Similar age to Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte that’s all.) As a society, we are aging more and more these days, and it seems like the idea that they may have reached grandparent age is weighing heavily on the Baby Boomers and older Generation Xers who are currently entering their second act.
Of course, in the end, the name doesn’t matter. “Grandma”, “Nana”, “Glamma” or “GooGoo”: the relationship our children have with their grandparents is important. Still, the shift in the grandparent vibe is interesting and makes me wonder what millennial and Gen Z grandparents will call themselves in the coming decades.
