In a book I’m reading at the moment – Border Country by Raymond Williams – one of the characters calls his grandfather ‘Gran‘, which strikes me as unusally. To me gran could only refer to a grandmother. Does it seem strange to you?
I only remember one of my grandparents – my dad’s mum – who I think we called granny. We used the same term for my mum’s stepmother, who was with us until 2013.
Some people I know have different names for their grandmothers. For example, their mum’s mum might be nan, and their dad’s mum might be gran or granny. I haven’t noticed people having different names for their grandfathers in English.
In Welsh though, people sometimes add the name of the place where they live to the words for grandfather and grandmother. For example, Taid Dinbych (Denbigh Granddad) and Nain Caergybi (Holyhead Granny), or in South Wales Tad-cu Casnewydd (Newport Granddad) and Mam-gu Caerdydd (Cardiff Granny).
What do you call, or did you call, your grandparents?
I share your initial assumption that “Gran” seems to refer only to a grandmother. So much so, in fact, that based on the title I totally thought this was an article about advances in transgender acceptance.
To answer your question, I called my grandparents Granny, Granddaddy, Grandma, and Grandpa. (And when my step-mother married my father, I called my step-grandparents Grandma [Surname] and Grandpa [Surname].)
I’m American, and wonder if there is British/American divergence with grandparent names as there is with the Mum/Mom reference for mothers.
Like you, Simon, I only knew one of my grandparents, my maternal grandmother, who was called Granny; my maternal grandfather (who became a grandfather exactly a year before his death, some 7 years before I was born) was referred to as Grandpa. My paternal grandmother died before I was born, but was grandmother to my two much older cousins, who called her Nana, and always referred to as such after her death; my paternal grandfather didn’t live to see any of his grandchildren, but was always referred to as Opa (being German-born).
My maternal cousins (whose paternal grandmother was my maternal grandmother, Granny) called their Austrian-born maternal grandmother Omi – as did everyone else in the family (except her daughter), as far as I rememeber.
I called my grandparents Grandpa and Grandma (pronnounced gran-pa and gram-ma). My friends had terms like Papa for a grandfather. I have heard use of Nana for grandmother and Poppi for grandfather. A friend’s granddaughter calls her Oma. My nephews call their grandparents (my parents) in the Scandanavian style – Morfar and Mormor (pronounced muff-fa and mo-mo).
Born in USA with Swedish and Danish heritage.
I think English people use similar things to distinguish between grandparents- place of origin or surname, but it varies as much as children’s imaginations do! (Granny Island and Grandma Mainland in The Katie Morag series, for example) I’ve also heard ‘Nana ill-in-bed’ and “Nana hospital” as nicknames by small children. Granda * first name* seems to be the usual in Northern Ireland, with similar patterns for grandmothers.
Interestingly, great grandparents seem to follow the same system, and often get called the same things by both their grandchildren and their children. Hence Nana will be the daughter of Grandma, and each will be addressed as this by their grandchildren and below.
I used the term “granny” with my teenage nephew. he said she wasn’t his “granny” but his “nan”. I quizzed him on this. he said to him a “granny” was a derogatory term for an old, maybe wizened person. He lives in Sydney, Australia.