{"id":39676,"date":"2023-09-30T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-30T07:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=39676"},"modified":"2026-06-06T06:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:02:53","slug":"a-name-for-grandma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-name-for-grandma\/","title":{"rendered":"A Name for Grandma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/a>
Jon and I and our newborn first grandchild. We’d need a name for Grandma. Photo by Ken Nystrom<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A Name for Grandma<\/strong><\/h5>\n

When my son’s first child was born in 2016, I stopped to wonder: what did I want my new grandchild to call me? Would I be Nana, like my great-grandmother. Or Grandma, like my mother.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, both those options were off the table. By the time my first grandchild arrived, both names had been scooped up by other grandparents in the family.<\/p>\n

How about a nickname? My mother’s family had them aplenty — Toto, Tinka, Pinky, BoBo.<\/p>\n

Nope. If I was to be a grandmother, I wanted the perks and titles that went along with it. So I settled on Grandma B — B for Barbara.<\/p>\n

I wanted the dignity of an honorific. And so did my friend Jake, whose story I told\u00a0 back in 2010. Here it is:<\/p>\n

A Child is Born — And So Is a Grandpa<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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By Barbara Falconer Newhall, February 13, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n

My friend Jake is a man in his prime. He does triathlons, reads good books, knows all the best hiking trails, drinks nice wines, and likes nothing more than a good, scrappy conversation. In other words, Jake has never been anybody\u2019s rickety old grandpa.<\/p>\n

Until recently.<\/p>\n

A few months ago, Jake\u2019s daughter gave birth to a baby girl. Jake couldn\u2019t be happier about this delightful new creature in his life.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t so sure about his new status as a grandfather, however. It would require him to make a decision, a big one.<\/p>\n

What would this child call him?<\/p>\n

Jake? Jakey? Jay-Jay?<\/p>\n

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\"a<\/a>
Two Grandpa Falconers \u2014 and my big brother Davey.\u00a0Photo by Tinka Falconer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Anything but Grandpa. Grandpa \u2014 that\u2019s what they call the old guys. And Jake was not an old guy.<\/p>\n

I feel his pain. My own father went by Grandpa. My grandfathers were Grandpa Falconer and Grandpa Dick. My mother is Grandma. Old people all.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, where I come from, Grandpa is not pronounced Grand Pa. It\u2019s\u00a0Grampa<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 folksy and countrified, with a short, nasal, deeply midwestern \u201ca.\u201d<\/p>\n

GRAMP-uh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Likewise, at our house Grandma was never Grand Ma, but Gramma \u2013 also with a shot of that nasalized \u201ca.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pie and Coffee and Grampa With a Twang<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Grampa. Gramma. For me, those names have the ring of my father\u2019s small town, Methodist \u2014 Mason County, Michigan \u2014 antecedents. No dancing, no drinking, no swearing. Reader\u2019s Digest rather than Portnoy\u2019s Complaint<\/em>. Pie and percolated coffee rather than crudit\u00e9s and cabernet \u2014 or even a\u00a0Stroh\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In my husband\u2019s cosmopolitan, coastal \u2014 San Francisco \u2014 family, on the other hand, the Newhall elders were known as Scott and Ruth. Jon\u2019s father didn\u2019t care much for small children. At dinnertime, they were always seated as far as possible from the head of the table. Preferably in the next room.<\/p>\n

But once those small children became lovely, supple young women\u00a0and bright, headstrong young men, they were allowed to approach the table for adult-to-adult conversation with their peers, Scott and Ruth.<\/p>\n

Would You Call the Queen of England Betsy?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My family frowned upon that kind of familiarity. At our house, parents and grandparents were addressed like royalty. Words like Mother, Father, Dad and Mom were honorifics, terms of respect. We\u2019d no more call my parents Dave or Tinka than we\u2019d call the Queen of England Betsy.<\/p>\n

Which takes me back to my friend Jake. His first thought was to have the baby simply call him Jake. Or Jakey. Or Jay-Jay. Something cozy, but age-neutral.<\/p>\n

After all, no way was he old enough or fusty enough to be anybody\u2019s Gramps or Grand Daddy. And if he really were old and rickety, he wouldn\u2019t want it pointed out every time somebody called out his name.<\/p>\n

Julie Andrews \u2014 A Name for Grandma<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Julie Andrews once confessed to having seven grandchildren \u2014 publicly, on The Daily Show. What\u2019s more, she said, she lets her grandchildren call her that most ageifying of endearments \u2014 Granny.<\/p>\n

Granny Jules, to be exact.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
My mother was Tinka to her friends, Mom to her children and Grandma to her grandson Peter. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My sophisticated friends Nancy and Steve \u2014 she\u2019s a well known\u00a0artist<\/a>, he\u2019s a professor at UC-Berkeley \u2014 sent us an invitation to their grandson\u2019s second birthday party recently. They signed it, to my astonishment, Nana Nan and Papa Seeda.<\/p>\n

Nana Nan? Papa Seeda?<\/p>\n

Granny Jules?<\/p>\n

How do these people do it? They must own buckets of self-esteem. How else could sophisticated, in-the-mix people like Julie Andrews and Nancy and Steve risk being thought of as \u2014\u00a0old<\/em>?<\/p>\n

My friend Jake is a thoughtful guy. As I mentioned earlier, he reads good books, urges his friends toward good conversation, and likes to meet his life challenges head-on \u2014 with the aid of a nice cabernet, if need be.<\/p>\n

Facing Up to the Generational Facts<\/strong><\/h5>\n

But it turned out that Jake, like Nancy and Steve and Granny Jules, was blessed with an abundance of self-esteem after all. (Or was a glass of cabernet involved?) Because somehow my friend Jake finally faced up to the facts.<\/p>\n

He may or may not be old, he told himself, but he is a grandfather.<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t this baby\u2019s dad. He\u2019s not her uncle or her big brother. Yes, he loves bicycling, swimming, hiking and scrappy conversation. But he is also this tiny girl\u2019s grandparent.<\/p>\n

Grandparents — The Family Royalty<\/strong><\/h5>\n

And grandparents have responsibilities. They are the elders of the family. They provide continuity, stability, security, dignity and maybe even some enlightening dinner table conversation.<\/p>\n

It was time, Jake decided, to accept his new responsibilities. And his new title. He\u2019d be what this brand-new little person most needed. He\u2019d be Grampa, with a twang.<\/p>\n

More thoughts on old and getting older at “The Shame of Aging: The Big Seven-Five Has Finally Arrived.”<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Also, “My Brand-New White Hair. It’s Real. It’s Scary. But I Kinda Like It.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
A name for a grandma and a grandpa? Why, Grandma and Grandpa, of course. Mine are seated, center front, in this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"a<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s a good name for a grandma? No cute nicknames for me. If I was to be a grandmother, I wanted the time-honored title that goes with it.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[103,1505,34,2359,515,2768,2769,1624,82],"class_list":["post-39676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-aging","tag-american-culture","tag-dont-miss","tag-grandchildren","tag-grandfathers","tag-grandmothers","tag-grandparenting","tag-names","tag-on-the-funny-side"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49087,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39676\/revisions\/49087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}