Generational Naming

I'm not sure if it's a Southern or US-wide trend, but I noticed that around Memphis at least, it's not very common for grandparents to go by "Grandma" and "Grandpa." It seems like almost everyone has their own pet name, whether it's Mimi, Nana, MeMaw, Popsie, Granddaddy, or Papa.

Apparently, there's a whole website dedicated to picking your grandparent name. Who knew?!

I always referred to my own grandparents as Grandma/pa + Last Name, like "Grandpa Jones." I never really noticed what my friends called their grandparents, but I think that nomenclature was fairly common in the Northwest, at least in the 80s. Perhaps the times they are a changin'. For our kids, I told their grandparents they could pick their own name if they wanted to. For now, we're sticking with Grandma and Grandpa all around. We'll see if the boys come up with anything more creative once they start talking.

Most Southern parents seem to go by "Mama" and "Daddy" to their own kids, I think, more so than "Mom" and "Dad." However, I should be caveating this whole post that it's mainly based on my observations of white, middle-upper class families from my church, which is populated primarily by traditional Southerners.

When it comes to naming one's offspring, there are some unique Southern traditions afoot. For example, say your maiden name was Jane Jones. You marry Steve Smith. It would be fairly common for your son to then be named Jones Smith. I've heard this with some rather...interesting...maiden names that really don't seem like first name material, but in this case the kid usually gets a more normal nickname at least.

For those of you who know my maiden name, I don't think you'll be surprised to hear we did not carry on that tradition :)  If you don't know it, just imagine something German with a whole lot of consonants. Like Pfretzschner. Oh but don't worry, we'll call him "Schnerzie"!

In other naming news, I've decided that the babies need new pseudonyms for the blog. Baby A and Baby B are so 2015. So from now on, I'm going to call them Gus and Gibson, in honor of the restaurants that fueled my growing belly during pregnancy!