The Gam-Gam Conspiracy

I realize that a great many of the people reading this will disagree with and perhaps even be offended by what follows, but I feel that I must address the disturbing trend of children using nonsensical nicknames to address their relatives. When I was growing up the nomenclature was fairly intuitive and it worked something like this:

• Your grandmother’s name was Lucy = Grandma Lucy
• Your uncle’s name was Dave = Uncle Dave
• Your Parole Officer’s Name was Bill = Parole Officer Bill

For whatever reason, society has deemed this system unworthy of modern application so instead we are left with entire websites dedicated to “selected one’s grandparent name.” I recently visited About.com which hosts a “Grandparents Naming Guide” complete with a 20-question quiz to help you determine your grand parenting nick-name. After completing the questionnaire, I was informed that my grandfather name should be “G-Daddy” on the basis of my interest in technology and concert T-Shirts.

The site also suggesting the following “hip” suggestions for grandmothers:

• G-Mom
• MayMay
• MawMaw
• GiGi
• Bebe
• Honey
• Lovely 

G-Mom sounds like something you put on a Crips Booster T-Shirt, MayMay makes as much sense as MarchMarch, and you have a 50-50 shot of locating the last two names on the rooster at a gentleman’s club. Where does it end? Today it is just “BeBe,”  but pretty soon calls of “Where’s Squaw-Pooh?” and “I want my Binkle-Dorf!” will be echoing through the aisles of your local Toys R Us.

In the interest of fairness, the following were offered for cutting-edge grandfathers:

• Chief
• Budddy
• Captain
• Duke
• Big Daddy
• G-Pa
• Bompa

Now I can understand not wanting to be called “Grandpappy” outside of a Walter Brennan film, but “Chief” and “Buddy” are slightly condescending nick-names men use to address each other when their cannot remember their actual names and “Captain” is only applicable if your grandfather was honorably discharged from the Navy or happens to be Hugh Hefner. Also, I am pretty sure “Bompa” was Super Mario Brothers villain. 

While I cannot predict how I will feel once my children pro-create, I can tell you that I would feel more than a little uncomfortable if my granddaughter ran after me at Target yelling, “Give me a treat Big Daddy!”

It isn’t that I am against nick-names. I just feel that they should occur organically. For instance; if, in the course of your adventures together, your grandson has occasion to refer to you as “Grizzle Pimp” then I will not stand in your way. However, if you constantly refer to yourself as “Grizzle Pimp” in an attempt to indoctrinate the child you may be doing yourself (and the offspring of your offspring) a disservice.

In the spirit of hip grandparent names I have come up with a few myself that you are all welcome to adopt:

For the modern grandmother:

• Teeters
• Greezy
• Quasi-MaMa
• Gamma-Slice
• Grindle-Boo
• Butterscotch Carousel

For the modern grandfather:

• Comandante-PeePaw
• PappyLuv
• Big-Grimpin’
• Papylon-5
• Thor