Since I didn't want to ambuse Father Steve's oompah thread I thought I should start an other one...
In French we call our grandparents, Grand-père et Grand-mère (Grandfather and Grandmother) when you are a bit older and when being a bit formal. Grand-papa et Grand-maman (Granddaddy and Grandmommy) is used by kiddies and when speaking to kiddies.
We tack on the family name, i.e. Grand-maman Beaupré, if a situation arises where there can be a confusion about which grandparent you are talking about.
In some circumstances, some grandparents get a nickname (my grandmothers were called Mamie and Granny) but generally, most are called by the terms listed above.
I know that the Québec Italians call their grandparents Nono* (grandfather) and Nona (grandmother).
I know we've discussed something like this in the past, but since we have a wider variety of posters now, I'd like to know what terms are used to describe grandparents in your neck of the woods.
* unfortunately Nono in French means idiot.
In German: Oma and Opa, or sometimes Omi and Opi.
I wonder why grandmere isn't grande-mere, since she is feminine. Probably for ease of pronunciation.
Just a family thing - to avoid confusion, paternal grandparents were Grammy and Papa; maternal were Busia (Polish) and Grandpa. No matter how old the grandchildren got.
Wish they (the grandparents) were all still around!
Allo Baronia,
If you said Grande-mère you'd be saying that your Mother is tall (grande = tall). The grand in this circumstance is not an adjective but a prefix which denotes one generation up.
my granddaughter calls her mother and father poppa and momma, I am Nana Helen, (to my granddaughter, and to my d-i-l's 12 year old son.)
EDIT: Dr bill, in the kindest way, made me into a slouch for not taking the effort to look things up... Thank you..
my D-I-L's mother is known my a tagalog word for grandmother, lola (ok, i was too lazy to look it up, Dr Bill provided it to me!) --i don't know what by what name the children call her father.(since he is australian, (born in Scotland), i suspect its is one of the common grandfather/pa variations. )
My honorary grandson calls his grandparents (fathers side) as grandma, and grandpa(with their name's attached...(as does my granddaughter (who is, of course, no blood relation to them!)
My ex is also grandpa, Grandpa Jimmy. (and his wife, is grandma Irene!)
(the kid's make out like bandits: D-I-L has 2 parents, her son has 4 (blood relative) grandparents, and 3 'honorary' ones. My granddaughter has 4 (blood relative grandparents) and 3 honorary ones. (and there are 3 great parents alive, unfortunately, my parents have no relationship with me, my kids, or their great granddauther, and my ex's mother is infirm, and semi senile.)
like the 'coming demographic change', there are more older generation members of the family than younger! (and grandparents are spread out. one currently lives in Singapore, one SF,CA, 2 north of SF, 3 in NYC.)
In German: Oma and Opa They could get together and start an oompaa band.
My Father's parents were know as "Granny surname" and "Gramp surname"
My Mother's Mama was also "Granny surname" but I have no idea what her father would have been known as, because he died about four/five years before I was born.
I have a german sister-in-law and her kids refer to my parents as oma and opa.
In mandarin, grandma is nai nai (nye-nye) and grandpa is ye ye.
k
In Indonesian grandfather is kakek and grandmother is nenek (generalised to mean old man and old woman respectively). Great-grandfather/mother is buyut or moyang. Kakek moyang = ancestors.
Bingley
Used to call one of my grandmothers Nenah, but I don't know where that came from.
In Hawaiian :
Grandmother - Tutu Wahine (Whahine being woman)
Grandfather - Tutu Kane (Kane - means man or male)
Both shortened to Tutu if just one present.
Wahine = Wha-he-nay
Kane = khan-ay
My maternal Grantparents were Gramma and Grampa.
My father's parents died when Dad was 12 so no confusion.
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Note: To be absolutely correct tutu is really kuku but prononced and generally written as tutu (too-too) The definitave Pukui Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary notes this is apparently a "new" word as it is not found in the ancient Hawaian chants.
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A friend's grandchildren call her Nana.
>>tutu is really kuku but prononced and generally written as tutu (too-too)
The sound is kind of halfway between a /t/ and a /k/, isn't it?
Hindi:
Maternal grandmum: Nani
Maternal grandad: Nana
Paternal grandmum: Dadi
Paternal grandad: Dada
Tamil:
No genealogical distinction
Grandmums: Pati
Grandads: Thatha
Malyalam:
Mum: amma; dad: acchan (cch, as in, change)
Maternal grandmum: ammamma
Maternal grandad: ammachhan
Paternal grandmum: ?? (Ravi, help!)
Paternal grandad: Acchacchan
Used to call one of my grandmothers Nenah, but I don't know where that came from.
I would hazard a guess that this is a form of Nanna - a very common Englisj form for Grandmother.
In Northam[tonshire, the usual form was Nanna and Pap or Pappa.
(One's grandson was commonly referred to as, "Moi Lil' ole bwoy.") ... and there aren't any typos there - that's the way they said it!
Acchamma.
But we also had, as a kind of funny one:
Muthashi (grandmum) and
Muthasha (grandad)
I knew they existed as words, but never quite figured out how they worked in the scheme of things. In any case, we kids picked up for my father's parents what my parents called them, so they wer Accha and Amma to us. And my mother's father was so proud of the fact that we were kind of English ("An Englishman never lies. His word is his bond" And he wore a Hitler mmoustache!) that they were always called Grandad and Granny. Hey, what's the point of being consistent when it's family?
cheer
the sunhsine warrior
On my mother's side they were Nana and Grandpa. On my father's side they were Grandma and Grandad. Go figure ...
A former roommate called her Estonian grandmother "Vanna" (with a short A, not pronounced like Vanna White).
well, I never knew my paternal grandparents, nor my maternal grandfather, but my maternal grandmother was Granny.
my kids call their paternal grandparents, Gramma and Grampa, and their maternal, Grandpa and Grammie.
my niece calls her maternal grandparents(my parents) Old Hoot and Coot...
So who's the Hoot and who's the Coot
My Greek chum called her grandmother YaYa.
Don't remember what Grandfather was called.
I have YaYa's recipe for spanikopitas - yum yum.
what Grandfather was calledYoYo?
Thanks to Father Steve - Greek Grandfather - Pa-Poo.
A friends Swedish grandparents were
MorMor maternal grandmother
MorFar maternal grandfather
FarMor paternal grandmother
FarFar paternal grandfather.
a very organised and logical system.
Edit which was covered in the Oompahs thread but I just made it down that far. Boy you miss a lot when you don't check in for a while.
In Portuguese, it's pretty tricky (from our point of view):
grandfather = avô (roughly, "ah-voh")
grandmother = avó (roughly, "ah-vah")
Kids' diminutives usually are the above minus the first syllable.
As far as I can tell, no one has brought in French-Canadian yet, so:
Grandmother = Memre (pronounced mem-eh or mem-air)
Grandfather = Pepre (similar pronunciation)
(somebody please help me, I'm not quite sure of the spelling, as I usually only hear these names)
Allo Gonold...yup, French Canadian was brought in right at the very first post - from me
Mémère and pépère are not very nice ways of calling your grandparents. It's rather negative, kinda like calling somebody an old fart.
I can't vouch for that in the French communities in the western provinces, but in Québec, you don't call your grandparents that unless you want to insult them.
belMarduk,
Thanks for the correction, however, in French areas of New England, these names (as far as I can tell) are not meant to be derogatory...but Americans have always been strange, haven't they...
No worries, gonoldothrond. Like English, French can vary greatly depending upon where you are. That's why I try to remember to add "Québec French" when I talk about meanings so as not to mislead anybody.
I know I'm late to the party, but since my daughter has six living grandparents and three living greats, and unique names for all I thought it would be worth a post.
My mother and stepfather are Grand-Chris and Grand-Kev (their names are Christine and Kevin, and both think they are too young to have "real" grandparent names, like Grannie or Grampa).
My father and stepmother are Grandpa and Nana (pretty traditional).
My M-I-L and F-I-L are Grandma and Poppa.
My (maternal) grandparents are Gramie and Grandfather (That is what my brother and I have always called them, yes even as little kids we were required to call him "Grandfather". It seems very Victorian, but that's what we did).
My wife's grandmother is Gamma Lily (her name is Lillian, and she is Gamma Lily to all of her grandkids and great-grandkids, of which there are literally dozens.
We like the unique names so we don't have to resort to the "Grampa [surname] or Grampa [surname]?" confusion.