Grand Advice: Grandparent Nicknames Cause Parent Dilemma
“Both sets of grandparents want to use the same nicknames. Won’t this be confusing for my kids? Can I say something without rocking the boat?”
Thank you for sharing your question with Grand Advice. You’ve brought up a common concern: choosing grandparent names and titles often causes headaches for families. There are two issues here: whether it’s confusing, and whether you should say something.
In fact, different grandparent nicknames don’t always guarantee children will keep the grandparents straight. It may take a while before grandparents become individual people to your child. I know my grandchildren often call me Grandma when we are together, even though that’s the other grandma’s name. They also still mix up the names of their three aunts, even though they are very different people whom they rarely see together. My point is this: names aren’t all that important to a child.
If they are important to you, it's okay to bring it up. If you decide to address this, focus on your children's needs rather than your preferences. You might say something like, “We're so grateful that you want to be such involved grandparents. We wonder if we could find a way to help the kids distinguish between you when they're talking about you.”
There are a few options you could suggest:
After explaining your concern, ask if they'd be open to slight variations on the nicknames.
You might suggest adding a prefix or suffix to differentiate, like "Grandma Jane" and "Grandma Sue", or "Denver Papa” and "New York Papa."
Consider embracing cultural nicknames if they are part of your heritage, using terms from different languages for each set of grandparents.
Be sure to approach this with sensitivity and open communication. Grandparents often have deep feelings about the name they want to use. It can feel as if they are being denied something they’ve looked forward to if you insist they choose another nickname. Remember, your ultimate goal should be to encourage loving relationships between your children and their grandparents.
As we shared in the blog post Who Picks Grandparent Nicknames?, choosing grandparent names is just the first step in establishing healthy respect and communication between parents and grandparents.
A final reminder: so often, the grandparent nicknames we carefully choose get mangled by a child as they learn to speak. These tend to be the most-loved nicknames of all, making all the worry about what to call grandparents wasted energy.
Today’s Grand Advice column was written by DeeDee Moore, Founder of More Than Grand. For more about DeeDee and why she created More Than Grand, read our About page.
