Readers Weigh in on Their Special Monikers
Published in · 3 min read · May 25, 2021
--
A couple weeks ago I wrote about grandma names. I had been thinking about it and came up with one I could live with (Nonny) while my better half exerted no effort and arrived at a much cooler one (Hoss).
There are no grandchildren on the horizon but it was fun connecting with others over this story so I did a little more research.
A list of Hippie Grandma Names included Cookie, Mimzy, Gram Cracker and Tootsie. Nana showed up as the most popular grandma name in my state, though I don’t know anyone who uses it.
Clearly grandparents attach a lot of emotion to the name their little miracles use for them. I thought it would be fun to share some of the stories I heard:
One reader said that her grandmother said “A’morning!” rather than “good morning. She would lean over the crib and say “A’morning, Gail!”to her first grandchild so the little girl called her “A’morning.” Subsquent grandchildren shortened it to “Morning” and it stuck.
When her grandchildren were small, another grandma told me, she lived in Ohio and the state became her grandma name. The children’s other grandmother lives in Hilton Head and is known as “Sand Mom” which is cool because it rhymes with Grandmom.
Some grandma names are amusing. An old friend said her mother-in-law, a lady who stood no taller than 5 feet, was known as Big Momma. One grandmother who made a tradition of giving quarters to her littles was dubbed “Munny.”
A teacher friend shared that she wanted to be called Grammy because, in her words, “who doesn’t want to be an award?” But bigger prizes were in store when her first grandchild dubbed her “Boppy” which she loves for its originality.
I heard stories of Lolli and Pop as grandparent names but each tale had its own unique twist. One Lolli said that her first grandchild couldn’t say the “L” sound at first and she was “Yotti.” “The first day he called me Lolli was almost sad,” she wrote, “because Yotti was a chapter closed.”
Another Lolli shared that when she and “Pop” get their full-time home in a community where houses are traditionally named, theirs will be “Lollipopaloosa” and that sealed the deal on their…
