I just read Dreams from My Father, the memoir Barack Obama wrote when he was in law school. It’s an amazing book and especially insightful on questions of race and identity.
One of the cute things in the book is that Obama called his grandmother Toots. It was an approximation of Tutu, the word for grandma in Hawaii where he grew up. Apparently, his grandmum wasn’t keen on being called grandmother or its English variants.
This reminded me of a Jezebel piece on grandmothers who do not want to be called grandma and the ensuing discussion on what to call them.
When you have kids and there are four people who need to be called something, especially if you’re all from the same community, it can become an issue-in-the-making. Similar to the confusion when people get married and start to call their parents-in-law variants of mummy and daddy. Suddenly, there are two mummies and two daddies and if they are all in the same place, it’s a little awkward. Do you mean your real mummy or the other one? All this can be solved if the parents are referred to as different variants of mummy (like amma or aiee) but unfortunately, V and I, both called our mothers mummy and V’s two brother-in-laws also called his mum mummy so it would be weird for me to adopt a different nomenclature from them. I solved this problem by not calling her anything, or sporadically, aunty. That’s a different issue, however, fraught with different kinds of tensions.
Back to grander things. We refer to my parents as Grandma and Grandpa, because these are the names my sister chose for my niece to call them.* We refer to V’s parents as Appapen and Ammamma, which are Malayalam words, so that’s conveniently sorted out.
However. It has turned out that Ammamma and Appapen are much easier to say than Grandma and Grandpa, which are really unwieldy for a child. So Benji actually says Ammamma but not Grandma, which is a little out-putting for me. Hope my mother never hears of this.
Also, V’s mother’s sister visited and it turns out that in Malayalam, she is also to be called Ammamma. I find this a bit odd and I think it would be confusing for a child. In my mind, a grandmother is a special person and should have her own title. V’s aunt acknowledged this but when I suggested another name, she bristled. She also had a different problem from the one the ladies mentioned in the Jezebel story had – she wanted a name that conveyed all the respect according to an older person; she demanded grandaunt and not the younger aunt status. Her husband is Tamil, and therefore she suggested he can be called Thatha. But when I suggested that she be called the female version of Thatha (Thathi?) she bristled again. At that point, I gave up. We don’t see her that often anyway. And if Benji gets mixed up between her and his paternal grandmother, that’s for them to sort out.
It also made me think about how we ended up calling my grandparents what we did. My dad’s parents were called Papa and Nana and my mum’s mum was called Granna and then the more trendy Gran (my Gran is very trendy – the kind that argues on behalf of her grandchildren for shorter skirts and nailpolish). Tragically I cannot remember what we referred to my mother’s father as (he died before we were born) – I think it was Granpda J (his first name). Quite formal and it never caught on, not helped by the fact that we never met him.
I’m not sure who decided these names. On my mother’s side there were plenty of cousins before us so we went with what they used. On my dad’s, my sister was the first grandchild. I must ask my mum how Papa nad Nana were arrived at. My cousin B on my dad’s side called her mother’s parents Avo and Ava, which are Portuguese words, or something of the sort. Some of my cousins on my mum’s side also called their grandaunts on their mum’s side Ti, which is the Portuguese word for aunty.
An interesting predicament is also what to call great-grandparents. My Gran, who will be 98 this year, has lived to seen 19 (I think, losing track of my cousin’s kids) great-grandchildren born. In ancient times, I don’t think this was that common because people just didn’t live that long. What do my kids call her? We are going with Gran, which is the same thing that we call her, and it’s easier for me to think of her as their grandmother than as their great-grandmother.
What do you call your grandparents and how did you arrive at calling them that?
*My sister and I are not entirely clear what we want our children to call each of us. On V’s side, his sisters are referred to as Amaiee and his sister’s daughter also calls me Amaiee. This was sorted out at some elder family level and we were duly informed. I thought Amaiee was very close to Amma but it seemed children can make these distinctions. V himself was completely confused – he insisted it should be Veliamma until he was set right by his mother. He was also startled to realise that Mema, the word they called his mother’s sisters, was not a word at all but a baby’s mispronunciation of Amaiee.
V informed my sister that he would like Sibear to call him The Dude but no-one has taken him seriously on that. So far we are referring to each other by our first names, which is going to result in the dastardly Western tradition of the children referring to adults by their first names and I can’t say I care very much.
Loved this one Bride 🙂
Well in our house, its pretty simple actually…
When RMB and I were younger, we would call our grandparents (Calcutta Thathi and Calcutta Thatha – mom’s parents) and (Madras Thathi and Madras Thatha – Dad’s parents)
Now R follows that rule and calls my parents as Baroda thatha and Baroda thathi (well the fact that they are now living in Goa has no change in her calling them, guess they are stuck to that name for ever!) and RD’s parents are called Calcutta thathi and Calcutta thatha…so we go by city names…its pretty much a south indian custom you know…often you find the initials of people with their village names..so guess thats how it came up
and between RD and I, we call them, Baroda amma appa and Calcutta amma appa 🙂
Ha, place names is a good idea. That will make that grandaunt Australia ammama. A mouthful. Or maybe be can attach her name before it.
Baroda amma appa – hee, made me giggle.
You know, this is actually the first time I am hearing of this confusion. For us it’s quite simple, my parents are Nana-Nani and R’s parents are Dada-Dadi. That’s also the way we call/called our grandparents. There is a slight confusion when WE refer to our parents because we call both sets Mummy-Papa. We solve it by saying ‘your’ parents or ‘my’ parents or something like that. That’s also what Anna calls us – though she calls me Mumma instead of Mummy.
For great-aunts and uncles I remember that we usually used to prefix that person’s first name before Nana/Nani/Dada/Dadi as applicable. It’s the same for Anna – she calls my mom’s sister Anu Nani. She calls my grandmother (my mother’s mother) Badi Nani (Big Nani).
As for aunts and uncles – again we have very straight forward rules – Mama for mother’s brother, Mami for his wife, Mausi for mother’s sister, Mausaji for her husband, Chacha for father’s brother, Chachi for his wife, Bua for father’s sister and Phoophaji for her husband. We usually add the first name too to make it more unique and the same is extended to all cousins/second cousins etc.
My father and his sibling used to call their father Daddy. I remember being very fascinated by it because other than that fathers we always referred to as Papa. I used to wonder why they called him Daddy and how come we didn’t call our father the same.
Phew, long comment. I got carried away :).
Hmmm, this seems to be the north Indian way? Because some of the south communities seem to have only one word. My own side of the family uses English variations and you know English has no distinctions for different relations. Chinese also, I think is very specific, like the names you mentioned.
Hahaha…completely enjoyed this post and I am in the same boat as far as the dilemmas of what to call grandparents..my daughter K calls my Mom Aaji which is grandma in Marathi…my mom-in-law didn’t want to be called Dadi which would have worked out perfectly my hubby being a UPite but she didn’t like it as it made her feel old and didn’t go with her general personality given that she the skirts & trouser wearing hip grandmom! She wanted the name to be unique, meaningful and grounded in culture etc all the time sounding modern. Sadly the traditional UPpeople also apparently call grandma’s ‘Aaji’ so that was not going to fly given its the same as the Marathi equivalent and she has grudgingly agreed to be called Dadi for now (till she finds a name with all the above criteria) . For my sis given that both sets of grandparents are Marathi, my nephew uses 1st name of grandma with Aaji (so my mom is Anu Aaji which has a nice ring to it) and the paternal grandfather is Ajoba…no confusion there as my Dad is no more. It’s really interesting how the names evolve in families 🙂
Yes, it’s the stories behind how names are chosen and what eventually comes to be used that is interesting.
very nice post!
I have more than a dozen pairs of granpa’s and granny’s 🙂
I called my Paternal Grandpa = dada (he was dada to everyone his brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandkids, great gran kids, relatives, neighbors literally every one even his wife called him dada ;P), my paternal grandma = Ajji. my maternal grandpa = gramps, thaaths, thatha. sometime with love Mr. Lakshman Rao 🙂 and my maternal grandma = Ajji.
All my life I have never seen both my paternal and maternal granny’s at one place so no confusions there.
Rest all the grandpa’s and grandma’s in the family are first name + thatha, first name + ajji 🙂
Yes, if they are not likely to meet, having the same name doesn’t matter. But in a situation where your child hardly sees any of the grandparents, having the same name can cause confusion as we’re trying to reinforce the idea of the person without the actual person there. So I noticed with the multiple ammamas, Benji looked a bit confused.
I call everyone who looks old either “ammumma” or “apuppa”. That includes my grandmother, my grand-aunts, my great-uncles, and random visitors to my house who have white hair. This sometimes leads to confusion when I introduce my grandaunt as “my grandmother”:my friends look around confusedly and say, “I thought your grandmother lives in India!”
But seriously, I’ve grown up this way, so it’s never been a problem for me. And each old relative has their own nickname, so I can distinguish between “Gold amumma” and “smiley ammumma”.
As for aunties and uncles, there are words in malayalam to account for every possible relation. Only the people who are not related to me do I call “uncle” or “aunty”.
“As for aunties and uncles, there are words in malayalam to account for every possible relation.” See this is what I thought. But apart from the ammama level, even at the level of aunts and uncles (brothers and sisters of parents and their spouses), there don’t seem to be different names for different relationships. So ammai is used a lot. Thus, I am ammai to my niece (as the wife of her mother’s younger brother) but my sister-in-law is also ammai to my kids (as the older sister of my husband). I would think there would be different words for these relationships as described by Anna’s mom above. However, I know that there is a lot of variation between Malayalee communities so even the way Ammai is used differs between communities.
Can you give examples of the different words? I would love to check with my MiL.
I will have to check with my father, he is the expert on family protocol 😛
But from what I know, in the first example it is ammayi, but in the second example it would be “appachi” because she’s your kids’ father’s sisters. Father’s sisters or cousin sisters are either “appachi” or “chitta”. But I’m not too sure about the usage of chitta, because I hate the word and try not to use it as far as possible. So all my father’s sisters are appachis to me. My father’s brother is “vellyacha” because he is older than my father. If he was younger, he would be “kochacha”. My father’s other cousins or brother-in-laws are “chittapa”s.
If my mother had older sisters, they would be “vellyama”s; younger sisters would be “kunyama” or “kochama”. My mother has three elder brothers, so the eldest is “vellyamava” and the youngest is “kunyamava”; the middleone is “aniyamava”. My mother’s sister-in-laws are all amayis. All my mother’s cousin brothers are amavas and all my mother’s cousin sisters are amayis. Again, I think that “chitta” can be used but I’m not sure how.
Just for clarification: kunya and kocha mean small, vellya means big or elder. Aniyan means brother.
I’m sure there will be differences, because as far as I know the Christian malayalee traditions are quite different from the Hindu Nair ones. For example, we don’t really use “ammamma” or “achamma”:those words are usually reserved for Christians, as far as I know.
Hope it helped and it wasn’t too confusing:)
Oh, so it does seem like there are more specific words than I had heard of. I think the ammai/appachi difference might be because of Christian Malayalees, which my husband’s family is – they are very clear on ammai being used and there was some debate about it. But even within Christian Malayalees there seem to be regional differences.
Okay, I learnt that only my mothers sister in laws are amayis. My mothers cousins, if older than her are peramas and if younger than her are chittas.
Ah! We were living in England away from relatives till I reached the grand old age of eight, and of course there were a whole lot of uncles and aunties in our orbit. It was only on coming back to Delhi that we discovered our real extended family. My sister and I were just too embarrassed to call our Bua (Dad’s sister) anything but Auntie for the longest time. My sis and I had crazy euphemisms for everyone else in the household(we stayed with my aunt for a few months till my father got his government accommodation). Both my grandfathers were called Bauji, and both grannies were called Chachi, even by their own kids, obviously because of joint family living which can certainly confuse your nomenclature if not your relationships. I did grow up to call my father’s father Dadaji, and he became a person I cherished dearly. He had lost his first wife in his early forties, so the roly-poly Chachi who lived with him was the only Dadi I knew. The rest of the extended family was, finally, referred by us as Chacha, Mama, etc. My father had several masis and mamas. and the one mama who lived in Delhi and who as a very significant figure in our young lives, we would call Great uncle. (The term granduncle is a newer usage, one i’m not totally comfortable with). My dad’s cousins were all called Uncle/Aunt. The one I’m closest to is now —Bua. My kids and my nieces and nephews call all their grandparents’ siblings by their first name followed by their parent’s relationship. So to my sister-in-law’s daughters, we are Mama-mami. to their kids we are VMama and Dipali Mami.It works:) Loved this post!!!
Interesting! And the consensus seems to be adding the first name of said relation when one word is shared by several relatives.
We also had some city named relatives:)
We do Achachan Achamma and Ammama and er, Achachan again for maternal! My parents are very unsettled at the thought of being called Muthasan and Muthasi which I say I will make my kid call them, just to unsettle them! And btw I thought Mema was short for Elayamma? Like we called my dad’s older sister Achechi and younger Mema and Ammai was reserved for the wives of mum’s brother and dad’s brother’s wives.
Sometimes I just call everyone Aundie and Ungle. They don’t like it.
Hahn, see for my sister-in-law it was convenient because Appupen and Achama were chosen by the other set (or is that what the parents of fathers are supposed to be called?) I asked V about Elayamma and he said “aunty” and I said “so is that where Mema came from?” and he said “I don’t know.” Clueless, I tell you these people, even while being insistent on certain nomenclature. So this information adds a new twist the to Mema tale, seeing as other families also use Mema as a short form.
Adding to what B, Hq and you have said on relations and names in Malayalam…
It differs across religion and region and the combos (ie religion +region).
A common thread is amma’s sisters are some kind of amma (based on elder to amma or younger to amma) – valiamma, peramma,chittamma(chitta),cheriyamma,elaiymma based on whether you are from central,south or north kerala.
Same with dad’s brothers (perappan, valiachan, cheriaachan,elaippan,chachan etc)
Here a big difference between Hindu and Christian families as Achan means palliyil achan (Church Father) and all achan’s are replaced with chachans or appan’s …
**** Some regional uniqueness does exist too. Trissur christian families have tradition of calling mom’s brother (ammavan) as achan. First time i saw that i got confused – a 25 or old guy was calling a 35 year old person as “achan”
Mom’s brother – ammavan (when many uncles exist..valiamma,kuttiamma or place ammavan etc ) during course of time ammavan has become mama or maman
Mom’s brother’s wife – ammayi ( you know the origin – Amma yayi ..meaning “you have become a mom now” so that ammayayi became ammayi
Dad’s sister – apachi in S. and C.kerala and ammayi else where
Grandparents – other than the ones mentioned before..
i have heard ammachan – for ammas dad. achachan – for dad’s dad
Interesting! And my husband’s family is from near Trissur and they call their mum’s brother achan.
Hmmm yes, so true – because I call both sets of parents as Appa/Amma. But when both are around and I need to address them – I call their first names and then suffix it with Appa/Amma -so no confusion there. As for the little fellow- he calls my mom Ammamma and paternal grandmom as Ajji but the thathas remain the same-it took sometime for the poor fellow to get that right!
As for the others-Im trying to teach him to call them by the relation-atthe/maama/doddappa etc but then dont know for how long *this* phase will last!
Good post- your simple posts make me think so much! 🙂
well we call gramma nona cos an italian lady lived neabry when my oldest cousin was young. and she liked it so it stuck. we have a problem with my neice cos everyone ie called by the same thing,. it’s very confusing. there are 3 amma’s and 3 appa’s and 2 paatis and 2 thatas! they then get nickname-thata, like najaj thata or buh-thata. i am technically called mincat chitti, but mostly its just mincat. heh. sister says e get titles cos then were different form all the goras who will be called by name, but frankly, i don’t care.
Yeah, see, I like the idea of titles but not enough to be very offended or upset if it’s not there. Specially with close relations like nieces…or frankly even my own kids… I know I’m special to them, I don’t really need a title to tell me so.
though apparently my mum should be ammamma. but sister doesnt like it. i have decided mine shall call my parents abuela and abuelo, or even the portuguese easier ava and avo.
I’m not a fan of ammamma either and would never want to be called that. Ava is cool, though i guess I’d feel a little pretentious using that. Weirdly Ava is a popular name for girl babies in recent times.
I’m still giggling at thathi 😀 (it’s paati, by the way, although thathi sounds most logical in kidspeak).
My daughter calls both sets of grandparents by name, followed by thatha, or paati. The same goes for the others- uncles and aunts on my husband’s and my side. Sometimes she gets confused, directly as a results of how I refer to my parents’ aunts and uncles. For instance, my mom’s aunt (chithi, for eg.,) is technically ‘paati’ to me, but I refer to her as chithi. Basically I use the same nomenclature as my mom does, and I tend to do it with my daughter too. My cousins, all of them much younger than me, are technically my daughter’s aunts and uncles. I haven’t been able to refer to them as such, so they’re variations of akka (older sister), anna (older brother), first name, proper title, etc. It seems to confuse my husband more than my daughter, though!