Grandmother Name

crizz13 · November 2014

My mom is driving me crazy about what this LO is going to call her.

I have a three and a half year old niece who calls my mom "Nonnie" which is what my mom chose three years ago when she was born. In the past year or so, my mom decided that she doesn't like the name because it sounds Italian and we're not Italian. She has actually cried about the situation, says she hates the name, and brings it up almost every time I talk to her. The amount of emails I've gotten about it is unreal.

She wants to change her grandmother name to Nannie, Nan, or Nana. I honestly don't care what she goes by, but want my baby and her older cousin to refer to their grandmother as the same thing. Now I'm getting pressure from my mom to "choose" one of the three names above to have my baby call her and then hopefully it'll rub off on her older cousin? To me, that just doesn't make sense...

Anyone have a similar situation or advice???

ETA: My mom and I are very close and usually get along very well...but she just can't seem to let this name thing go!

silverwings72 · November 2014

Yeah, that does sound kind of annoying. I guess since it means so much to her then I would pick one and start using it. I don't know how one would go about explaining her name change to your niece. She may just have to accept that she may always be Nonnie to her and she will need to get over it.

Also, I would let her know that there will be no more name changing after this. She will be stuck with the name you choose forever. We called my great grandmother Nana and it has always had a special place in my heart.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

mb314 · November 2014

I would have your mom choose unless you feel strongly. I don't think it is a big deal if your LO and the cousins call her something different. I really wanted DS1to call my parents Grandma and Grandpa bc that is what I called my grandparents. But somehow he just started calling her Mimi and we don't know where it came from. MIL has always been Mimi, but DS 1 doesn't really ever see her or talk to her. Now DH is upset that my mom not his mom is Mimi. Ugh.

so72409 · November 2014

I went through something similar when my girls were born. These were their first grandkids and she wanted to be called "Maw-Maw" which is a southern tradition...the only thing is we don't live in the south (though my mom is originally from NOLA), it sounds weird to me, and no one here would "get it". I have always called her "gramma" to the girls and now that's what they refer to her as....if she ever wants to change it, she can take it up with my toddlers! I never understood what the big fricken deal with the name was anyway....

BridgetThoams · November 2014

My sisters and I have always called my grandmother, Mum. She never picked a name and my mom always called her mom so as babies thats what we picked up. Some of my cousins call her Mum Carol because their moms didn't like the similarity to mom, I also have some cousins that call her LALA because their mom thought it was funny to call her the same name as one of the tellatubbies.

We all know who each other is referring to when we mention whatever name we call her, it has never made a difference to any of us that we all call her something different.

jmichlik · November 2014

Good luck to your mom on trying to force kids to call her the name she wants. I have known many situations where despite people's best efforts the kids referred to their grandparents with names of their own choosing. Some were due to little children's mispronunciations of course but you cannot always do anything about these things. My father's mother was called "Gima" by all her grandchildren because one of the kids could not say Grandma and it was shortened. She never really liked the name but there wasn't much to be done and it stuck with her for the rest of her life.

lesliegolem · November 2014

Yea I don't mean to sound harsh but I think she needs to let it go. You can pick something for LO to call her but your baby may choose to call her something different and that should be okay in my opinion. With your 3.5 year old niece think the changing name thing has sailed. Just seems like she's too old to be forced to change that and she may resent it. But who knows each kid is different!

My MIL was obsessed with what our DD would call her. She waffled so much and went on about it every time we saw her. At first it was cute then annoying! Finally when DD was born and a decision still wasn't made I took the reigns and just introduced my DD to her as "Grandma." My MIL hasn't mentioned it again and I appreciate that. Maybe once DD is older she'll come up with another name for her. But she's over 2 now I'm not forcing anything.

tinkerbell1658 · November 2014

Good luck. But fyi , my family is 100% italian and my moms side was nana. Lol

dads side is grandma

kimberly_ann81 · November 2014

We figured we'd let the boys call them what ever they wanted. We called them Grandma and Grandpa to the boys. Grandpa came out more as Papa so that is what we call the grandpa's most of the time. Grandma has always been grandma.

Lilwatz · November 2014

My husband and I are both the youngest and so both of our sets of parents already had names from the other grandkids. Having said that, we think they can be called whatever they want. It's the name they'll be called so I have no problem with them determining it.

kkewhitney · November 2014

Best of luck with this! It does seem to be an oddly touchy subject for some grandparents. If you have a good relationship with your mom I'd suggest just being honest with her. Especially about wanting to change what your niece calls her, I think that would be linguistically difficult.
She can pick a name for your LO to call her but as PPs have said, don't expect them to necessarily say it properly. Or at all.
I have a minor similar problem with MIL but in reverse. Neither of our families is German at all and she wants to be called Oma. I mean LO will probably only see her every 2-5 years and I have nothing against German, I took a year of it. I just don't get why she picked Oma? I'm just choosing to pick our battles and she hasn't brought it up in months. If it's so important to your mom it warrants an honest conversation.

AnnieRoo13 · November 2014

This is a tough situation, but as others have said LO will probably have their own pronunciation or word for her.

MIL chose Nanny when her first grand kids were born and it's confusing because her mom is still alive and we call her Nanny. I'm still never sure who we're talking about when someone says Nanny!
My grandma was always Gram which my brother picked as he was the first grandchild. My aunt was always annoyed that he got to pick it as she didn't like it, but I don't see a problem in choosing a different name for different families/kids.

jaminjeff · November 2014

My son is 3 next week. My nephew, the oldest grandchild is 26, my mom still struggles with this. DH and I wanted our kids to call us Momma and Poppa. My mom and dad have always gone by Mawmaw and Pawpaw. DS calls me Momma (he calls DH "D") and he never knows what to call my parents. I refer to them as grandma and grandpa and they in turn say something else to confuse him. He calls my mom Mawmaw but he calls my dad Paw, which is what we refer to DH's real dad as.

Just last week my mother asked what we call DH's mom and I said "Gram", just like my step-son has always called her (he's 20). The rest of the day she referred to herself as Gram. I just don't even bother saying anything. It's so cumbersome.

jj0313 · November 2014

My grandmother, an incredibly dramatic woman, made us call her Grandmommy.

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