T E X A R K A N A M A G A Z I N E
“What’s your grandmother name going to be?”
Nine years ago, as I eagerly anticipated the arrival of our first grandchild, I found myself constantly fielding this question. Everybody wanted to know what the little bundle of joy was going to call me. I felt befuddled at the prospect of choosing a grandmother name. My own grandmothers had been “Grandma” and “Oma,” the German form of Grandma. Nothing cutesy. I agreed with my late mother-in-law, who had her grandkids call her by her given name. She didn’t want to risk being called, in her words, “something dumb like ‘Peepo’ or anything like that.” So she went with Martha, and every grand and great-grand called her that. Originally intending to follow her lead, I settled early in that first pregnancy on Patsy. My son and daughter- in-law, however, were not on board. “You have to have a grandmother name,” they insisted. So, I dutifully set about finding one, beginning by researching the subject. Someone told me there was a website devoted to grandmother names. “Surely not,” I thought, and it actually was not entirely true. There were, in fact, MULTIPLE websites dedicated to the subject. One even featured a quiz designed to help each of us select our perfect name, much like the quizzes in Ingenue magazine once assisted us in determining our fashion personalities. In addition, my research yielded numerous books about grandmother names, one of which is inaptly titled The World’s Only Grandparent Nickname Book . I’m still not sure how you fill an entire book with grandparent names, but I didn’t spend the money to find out since plenty of suggestions were available on the Internet for free. One website featured a blog written by a former schoolteacher who had retired to become a full-time grandmother of seven. She blogs about ways to be a better grandparent. She has a newsletter, and you can follow her on Twitter. I’m not making this up. After reading several lists on the Internet, I decided to take the quiz. It indicated that I’m a “Hip Grandmother,” and suggested I might be suited for a name like “G-Dawg.” While I rather liked it, I didn’t think I could keep a straight face hearing a baby say it. One woman, who shall remain nameless (although not grandma-nameless), decreed that her grandchildren would call her “Grammy.” She and her husband took their first grandchild, when he was very young, to one of those wine warehouses where you need a shopping cart because the prices are so great. The child sat in the cart as they loaded it with their chosen vintages; the woman leaned over to the baby and whispered, “Your Grammy is a wino.” Can you guess what the child has called her ever since? Talk about a hip grandmother name. Grandfathers need names, too, of course, although nobody seems quite as obsessed with the grandpa names
(L-R) William, GiGi, Bryce, Dude and Hughes
MY DRIFT COLUMN BY PATSY MORRI SS Just Call Me G-Dawg
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