What's in a name? Not 'grandparents'

Blame it on the "60 is the new 40" mantra: Many baby boomers want no part of being dubbed Grandma, Grandpa, Granny, Gramps or anything of that ilk.

That's for old people, the thinking goes for this youth-obsessed generation. So they come up with variations, often rationalizing it by saying, "Well, the in-laws will be using 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa.'"

"It's not that we don't want to have grandkids. We just don't want to feel old," said Lin Wellford, 58, co-author of "The New Grandparents Name Book." "No one is going gently into that part of their life. We're just in denial. ... And the old names just have a lot of baggage attached to them."

When my wife's son was about to become a first-time dad, she landed quickly on Nonna, the Italian word for "grandmother." We love Italy, she noted, and that would make me Nonno -- pronounced "no-no," which is especially fitting.

Using foreign nomenclature in such cases is common, because it "just has a cozy feel to it," Wellford said.

Grant Rykken of Lino Lakes said his kids call his parents Oma and Opa, "from the German words, and to distinguish them from their grandparents on their mother's side."

Catherine Dehdashti of Eagan had a similar situation with her late mother-in-law, an Iranian whom the kids called Maman Bozorg, Farsi for "big [or grand] mother."

"That's also what we called my mom's grandmother, who lived in Louisiana," she said. "I guess it's a Louisiana version of the French 'Maman.' I have heard of a few other Meemaws, but not here in Minnesota."

Even down South, such monikers are becoming rarer, in part because of boomer vanity. As Wellford said, "Nobody wants to be called Peepaw in public."

Among the most common current pet names for grandparents are mangled variations of an intended title.

LoAnn and Bill Mockler's twin granddaughters call them Gamma (derived from Grandma) and Boppa (from Poppa).

"They had trouble with R's," said LoAnn Mockler, of Crystal. "[Our daughter] Meghan has recently been teaching them to call Bill 'Old Man,' which, oddly, he doesn't mind at all. Just so they don't start calling me 'Old Woman.'"

"Our kids called my own mother Gaga and my mother-in-law, who lived in England, Iggy Gaga [England grandma]," Lewis said. "Neither one minded, and Iggy Gaga signed herself by that name until she died."

Not all adaptations have such happy endings, but they at least can have promising beginnings. My mother, for example, insisted that she be called Honey, with the family's bemusement (we never heard even her husbands call her that) at least matching her satisfaction.

Similarly, and perhaps to garner a salutation as far removed as possible from her given name, Fritzella Rigelman "liked to be called Toots," said her grandson, Karl Rigelman of Minnetonka.

After all, Wellford notes, "How often in your life do you have a chance to pick a name that will be with you for decades?"