Beth DeCarbo of The Wall Street Journal recently asked for my opinion on grandparent names. Here’s what I had to say.
A lot of grandparents think that being known as ‘grandma’ or ‘grandpa’ sounds too old. There is no shortage of alternatives
At age 76, John Baginski takes long road trips on his motorcycle. He kayaks on a river near his Loveland, Ohio, home. And he bicycles hundreds of miles a year. “I’m an active guy in good health,” says Baginski, a retired Procter & Gamble chemical engineer. So even with three grandchildren—and a fourth on the way—Baginski makes one thing clear: Don’t call him grandpa. “The mental image doesn’t fit with me whatsoever,” says Baginski, whose own grandfather went by grandpa. “It reminds me of my grandparents, who did very little. Every time I would go over, they were just sitting on the sofa.” Shortly after the birth of his first grandchild 14 years ago, Baginski decided he wanted to be called Papa John, like the restaurant chain. “For me, that connotes my senior status plus my individual identity,” he says. “The only problem: Whenever I visit my grandkids, they expect me to bring pizza!”
Talking about my generation
Perhaps none of this should be surprising; after all, this was the generation whose music proclaimed, “I hope I die before I get old.” So like Baginski, many grandparents today recoil at the idea of being called “grandma” and “grandpa,” preferring names that they say sound “younger.” In an informal poll, hundreds of grandparents revealed their chosen names. There were playful ones, such as Gigi, Sukie, Lala, Magi and ChaCha. Others adopted derivatives of grandma and grandpa (Grams, Gramma, Glamma, G-Pa and Poppy). Yet others invented one-of-a-kind names that reflect their personalities, such as Gogo, Bunky (after TV’s Archie Bunker), Chief and Honey Birdie.
But there’s more than vanity at play here. There’s also society’s stereotype of grandmas and grandpas as slow, yesterday’s news and easy to dismiss. Even worse, grandma and grandpa can be used as insults, regardless of age. “Hey, granny. Pick up the pace!”
“Ageism is extremely prevalent in our culture,” says Ashton Applewhite, an activist and author of “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.” “We talk about the age of presidential candidates, of people with Covid, and use [phrases like] ‘OK, Boomer.’ The bias is terrible.” Applewhite, who is 71, says she doesn’t judge grandparents who choose distinctive names, but she encourages them to embrace their age. “I’m working for a better world, where ‘grandma’ won’t be a dirty word. That it will be OK to identify as an older woman.”
40s and 50s
In truth, most first-time grandparents aren’t that old, based on results of a 2019 survey by AARP. When broken down by generation, women who are baby boomers (born roughly from 1946-1964) were 50 years old when their first grandchild was born. Gen X women (born roughly from 1965-1980) were 40 years old.
Judi Shoup was 47 when her first grandchild was born in 2019. “My daughter said to me, ‘Mom, you better pick your grandma name. It’s pretty important these days,’ ” says Shoup, the people and social-media manager of a Savannah, Ga.-based construction firm.
She decided on the name Juju. “I’m too young for grandma,” says Shoup, who is now 52 with three grandchildren, ranging from 6 months to 4 years old. “Grandma feels very old-fashioned. To me personally, it’s almost insulting, like ‘old lady.’ ”
Women may struggle more with “grandma” than men do with “grandpa,” says Nancy Morrow-Howell, co-director of the Center for Aging at Washington University in St. Louis. “Women have always had to face sexism,” Morrow-Howell says, and the stigma is compounded when women face ageism as well.
For grandmothers who are still in the workforce, being perceived as old can be a liability. Bosses may think they’re about to retire and exclude them from work teams, Morrow-Howell says. Moreover, women are bombarded with ads from the beauty industry touting products that claim to make them look more youthful. “The messages are so pervasive. Women think, ‘Maybe I should try Botox or color my hair,’ ” Morrow-Howell says.
Call me grandma
Of course, many grandparents happily stick with tradition. “I am proud to be called grandma,” says Karen Lester, a former schoolteacher who currently lives in Jinju, South Korea. “Yes, I am senior-aged, but I take care of myself, am full of energy and strength, and I feel decades younger.”
Her grandparents were called Maw Maw and Paw Paw, names she has always despised. “I never liked it as a child. I was embarrassed by it,” Lester says. She also cringes when she hears “cutesy” grandparent names that others have given themselves. “I think it sounds like we’re dumbing things down. When the child is 40, do they want to be using that childish name? Also, I think you lose some dignity there. In Korea, grandma-aged women are revered.”
Nonetheless, Lester says she will have to settle for “gand-ma” until her 3-year-old grandson can pronounce the word “grandma.”
In fact, it isn’t uncommon for mispronunciations to stick. Linda becomes Lala and Maureen morphs into Momo.
“Some names are just easier for little kids to pronounce,” says Laurel Sutton, a linguist and president of the American Name Society, a nonprofit devoted to onomastics, the study and history of names and naming practices. Distinctive names are also helpful when children have multiple grandmothers and/or live in a multigenerational household, Sutton adds. Besides, “many people like to have pet names, coming up with something a little more personal,” Sutton says. “Identity is becoming a far more open, flexible thing.”
No joke
In that spirit, Jim Barr chose a name unlike any other: Grandsire the Magnificent. “It’s a playful name, but not a joke,” he says. “Being a grandfather should have a sense of authority. I wanted to establish the concept that there’s another generation above their parents—a generation that should be honored,” says Barr, director of ministry partnerships at Harvest USA, a nonprofit Christian organization.
When Barr first suggested Grandsire the Magnificent to his children, there was a bit of eye-rolling. But by all accounts, he’s a gregarious guy with a big personality. As Beth Barr, his wife, says: “Sometimes [the grandchildren] walk into the house and say, ‘Is Grandsire here?’ before they even say ‘hi’ to me.”
Both 65 years old and living in suburban Philadelphia, the Barrs have seven children and 16 grandchildren, with No. 17 on the way. To the grandkids, there’s nothing unusual about Grandsire the Magnificent. “The grandchildren think nothing of it,” Beth Barr says. “The little ones, before they can speak clearly, just say ‘yan, yah, yer’ for a while. But they grow into it and think it’s normal.”
For her part, Beth Barr says she rejected the name grandma both because it was already taken by her mother and because she thought it sounded old. But she also rejected her husband’s suggestion: Grandmother the Benevolent, which also has a whiff of the medieval. As a compromise, she picked a hybrid version of the name, “Bengi.”
No matter how odd or unusual the grandparent name, the children and grandchildren should respect the choice, says Lizzie Post, great-great-granddaughter of etiquette guru Emily Post. Conversely, when grandparents are given a name they don’t like, they shouldn’t be forced to keep it, she adds. “It’s OK to say, ‘I really don’t appreciate being called by that name. Can we think of another?’ ”
Ultimately, however, the grandchildren have to latch on to the chosen name for it to work, says Post, who along with her cousin, Daniel Post Senning, runs the Waterbury, Vt.-based Emily Post Institute. Lizzie Post has firsthand experience in this matter. Her own grandmother accepted a moniker given to her by the family: “Mud,” a name inspired by the kitschy Allan Sherman song about camp, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.”
As bad as Mud sounds, it was spoken with love and fondness, Post says. And “we thought it was hysterical.”