Grandma??? No, no, no....okay, maybe Mimi? by Jenn McKinlay

Jenn McKinlay: When I am late on my deadline, this is why...

They love me, really, they do! Meet Albert (left) and Mochi (right). Hooligan 2 brought them into my life and, of course, I adore them, am happy to kitten-sit them, play with them, spoil them, etc. In fact, it was all lovely and wonderful until H2 said, "Well, you are their grandma."

*Record Scratch*

Grandma? Excuse me? No, no, no, no...I am not ready for that! We haggled for awhile...

Him: Grammy?

Me: No.

Him: Granny?

Me: No.

Him: Meemaw?

Me: Stop.

We finally agreed I could be called "Mimi". I can live with that, plus kittens almost sound like they're saying "Mimi" when they squeak but "grandma" (dear lord) not so much.

In my family both of my grandmothers were "Grammy" with their last name to differentiate. My mom is called "Wowa" and my mother-in-law "Grammy". Both my grandfathers passed early so I have no idea what they were called and my dad was always "Pop-pop" or "Pop" while my father-in-law is Papo. 

I can guarantee none of them knew what they'd be called until the day came that the first grandchild opened their face hole and began to speak. I'm planning bribes for the first born grand already so I don't get stuck with a clunker of a name in my golden years.

Yes, yes, just give them whatever they want. LOL.

 So, how about it, Reds and Readers, what did you call your grandparents and if you're a grandparent, what are you called?

The Middle Name Game

INGRID THOFT
My standard email sign off is “IPT.”  I always include my middle initial because I don’t want to be the title of a Stephen King novel.  Recipients sometimes try to guess what the “P” stands for, and they are never successful.  Pamela?  Patricia?  Polly?  Nope.

In my family, we were all given family surnames for our middle names, which didn’t seem to be the norm among our friends.  So what does the “P” stand for?

Porter, and its origin is as unorthodox as the name itself.  My father had two middle names, one of which was Porter.  Family lore is that when his mother was being wheeled into the delivery room to give birth to him in their tiny Montana town, Dr. Porter happened to walk by.  He wasn’t my grandmother’s doctor, but she promised if it was a boy, she would name the child after him.  She wasn’t even under the influence of any narcotics!  I suppose she liked the name, and that’s how I became a Porter.

What about you, Reds?  What is your middle name?  Is it your maiden name?  Do you like it or do you wish a different middle name had been bestowed upon you?

RHYS BOWEN: My middle name is Elizabeth. I love the name and was planning to switch to it when I went to college, but chickened out at the last minute . Always regretted that!
My father's middle name was Newcombe, and I wish he'd passed that on to me. Or named me after my fabulous French great-grandmother Josephine who married at 17, had 14 children, still looked like a teenager at 40 and crossed the globe alone at 80 to join her daughter in Australia.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, one of the couples who run the farm we get our CSA from had a baby Josephine this winter! I was delighted to see the name reappear after a long time in abeyance.

My middle name is Jeanne, which I've always loved, since "Julia Jeanne" has a pleasing resonance to it. My first name is in honor of my father's mother, Jewel Spencer, and my father wanted to give me the same middle name as my mom, Jean. She demurred, until they came up with a compromise: same name, French spelling. Now the Smithie's middle name is Jean. We'll see if it turns up with a different spelling in the next generation.

As near as I can tell, middle names are primarily a way for your mother to signal something is REALLY important. As in, "Julia Jeanne, don't tell me you missed the bus again this morning!" Oddly enough, I say this to myself now, when I forget something or make a boneheaded move. "Julia Jeanne, I can't believe you forgot your shopping bags again." It's true, we do become our mothers.

JENN MCKINLAY: Julia, yes! When we were naming the Hooligans, I said to the Hub, "I have to shout it so that I know it sounds like I mean business." He thought I was crazy, so maybe it's a mom thing. I also shoved my maiden name in there so they both have four names, which driver license and passport issuers just love - not. My middle name is Adelia after my maternal grandmother. I love it since "Jennifers" populated the 80's pretty hard and this was a nice change from all of the other Jennifers who inexplicably all had Marie for a middle name. Plus, my initials were JAM - how can you beat that?

HALLIE EPHRON: I always wanted my middle name to be my first name. Elizabeth. Like, you know, Elizabeth Taylor. And yes, Hallie Elizabeth is what my parents called me when they were issuing orders. What I hated were my initials. HE or HEE. Hee hee hee.

Our daughters are Naomi Samantha and Molly Kate. LOVE the names. When Naomi went to summer camp for the first time, she told everyone her name was Samantha. "Call me Sam." And they did, for two weeks. 

I just had to include this baby.  What a great start to the week!

LUCY BURDETTE: When you have a first name like Roberta (a mouthful, right?), it's good to have an easy middle name. Hence, Ann. One syllable, plain, no mix-ups when you tell someone (except for the pesky question of whether there's an "e" at the end or not.) This name was borrowed from my mother's sister, Barbara Ann, so we always bonded over that. When our daughter was pregnant with her second child, there was a lot of jockeying over prospective names. (They chose not to know the sex until birth.) Ann was popular for a while because both grandmothers have it as middle names, so they could have pleased everyone at once! Didn't need it when Henry was born...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Of course nothing is simple. Roberta, my middle name is Ann, too. My first name is Harriet. A completely perfect name now, Harriet, and I wish I had kept it.  But when you are 8 and all the cool girls are Debbie and Linda, you do NOT want to be geeky-already without-the-baggage-of-a-terrible-name Harriet. 

So I went by Ann. Or, when I realized about Princess Anne, Anne. OR when I was cool at 16, An. Yes, like the article. It was SO sad.

My parents last name was Landman, so to make things even more terrible,  Ann Landman sounded way too much like--right. Ann Landers. Ha ha ha. Gah.  So when they gave me Hank in college, whoever did, that stuck. 

But I know a good name when I hear one, so I named my characters the names I wished for myself: Charlotte Jane (McNally) and  Jane Elizabeth (Ryland.)  (Now, thinking about that, those names don't fit me at all. I just wish they did.)


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, I am SO boring. All the DEBORAHs in my generation seemed to have been either Deborah Lynn or Deborah Ann, and I am, you guessed it, a Lynn. In my early teen days, when I hated Debbie with a passion, I wanted to be called Lynn. Fortunately, it never stuck. But I still hate Debbie, so unless you are my aunt, my cousins, or my mother-in-law (who's known me since I was a teen) please don't call me Debbie. (Or cupcakes...) Plus, I was a DD, as in Debbie Darden. Ouch. I named my daughter Katharine Claire, and, so far, at least, she's never complained about either.

Your turn, Readers!  What's your middle moniker?

Call Me Twiggy

RHYS: Britain has a new hero--Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France and Olympic gold medal in cycling. All the headlines here read Sir Wiggo. They want him to be knighted. But what struck me was the Wiggo appelation. It seems that sports stars are the only ones with nicknames these days.

I am a big San Francisco Giants fan and I go to see Panda and the Melkman. I used to adore Will the Thrill (Clark). But apart from sports it seems that nicknames have gone out of fashion. What made me think about this was that the house I'm staying in has a library to die for. I could be cheerfully locked up here for a month and never emerge to watch Olympic events or meet friends. I've been reading in every moment of my spare time and one of the books I've most enjoyed was a biography of the Mitford Sisters. Nicknames played a big part in their lives. Everyone had a nickname, including their mother--either Muv or TOW short for The Old Woman.

As you will know if you read my Royal Spyness books, nicknames are an intrinsic part of British upper class life. Children were baptized with stodgy, ponderous names and then given nicknames as terms of endearment. Thus Georgie's brother and sister in law are Binky and Fig and their son is Podge. When I first married into John's family I heard people talking Fig and Dude (yes I confess to borrowing the nickname) and Mitty and Podge and wondered who on earth they were. All cousins with respectable real names. And British boarding schools were notorious for dubbing everyone with a nickhame (sometimes not too flattering--as in Fatty Foreman and Tubby Halliday at my school)

Children in nurseries were always given a pet name. Our own oldest daughter was Toots, I used to be Cookie, a cousin was Bumpy. But this practice seems to have died out completely. Nobody uses nicknames any more... unless one is Pablo Sandoval or Bradley Wiggins.

So what are your thoughts on nicknames: have they died out? Is this a good thing?

JAN BROGAN - I am a big nickname proponent because I think it gives a person options. I obviously believed in naming my children one name and calling them something completely different. I named my daughter Eilann, which no one could pronounce so immediately she became the simpler Lannie. I named my son after my brother, Frank. But since we never called my brother Frank, i felt no need to actually call my son Frank, so he became Spike. Which everyone, even the teachers called him, until he went to college and reinvented himself as Frank. But again, it gave him the option.

In fiction I think nicknames are great - especially for me - because as far as I'm concerned there just aren't enough interesting male names for characters At least not contemporary names. Now that I'm writing in the 1860s, the male names are much more varied.

LUCY BURDETTE: We have a constantly evolving stream of nicknames in our house. I won't go into John's or mine for fear of deep embarrassment, but Tonka the wonder dog for example might be called simply "T" or "Teaser" or "Cheese Toast" or "T-Tonk" or "Mr. T" or "Tonky-Toes" or "Tonky-Tuna" or "Mr. Twizzles", or in certain select cases, Knucklehead:). You get the idea...

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I think you're right. I see among my friends with young children a very strong desire that the children's names should NOT be shortened. Olivia will be called OLIVIA at all times and never Liv. I have some sympathy, as I hated my nicknames as a kid. No one now dares call me Debbie, or deBORah (my cousins' name for me) or God forbid, Little Debbie Cupcake. I have, however, adopted my British friends' nickname for me, Debs. I named my own daughter Katharine thinking it would give her options, which it did. She goes by Kayti--her spelling, not mine. But I've realized my main characters are never called by nicknames. Hmmm. But Duncan is not going to be Podge!

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Like Lucy's dog Tonka, Max, my golden retriever has a dozen nicknames including the excruciating Cuteus Maximus and Maxi-poochus. He owns us.

I've only used nicknames in my books to describe a character that the speaker doesn't know well (or at all.) So I think I've had Biker Boy and The Fish Lady.

(Hmmm...is that a title?)

My own nickname when I was a wee thing was Blossom. What about you girls?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Nicknames run rampant in my family. My mother was Mutti (we lived in Germany for many years) Mumford, Mumphy and Madge. My sister is Zoom. My brother went through a series of nicknames as a cute youngster which I won't detail here for fear of my life, and is known today as Herm. Short for Herman. (His given name is Patrick.) Both I and my children have one uncle who is simply known as "Uncle."

Your mention of Twiggy is actually spot on, Rhys - believe it or not, I was called Twiggy before puberty caused me to, ah, blossom. Since then I have been Big J, Juju and Jule.

My own children are called, at various times, V, V'jer, Vicey, Spencerus Rufus (from Latin class,) Ginger, Gingy, Gingersnap, G-snaps and The Love Hamster.

Rereading this, I see we can give the Mitfords a run for their money...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My dear cat Lola was Lolita, Lola T. Cat, Lolita-Burrito, and, eventually, The Burrito.

Hanky Panky and Hank the Tank being the only possible nicknames for me, I have avoided them like crazy. Growing up as Ann, I was Anzio, Anzio Beach, and Anushka. Anushka, I liked. (My sister Nina was The Kobeena, Nancy was Fancy Nancy, Liz was Leez and Chip was inevitably, to his dismay, Potato.)

My favorite, though, is our next door neighbor's uncle, who they call: The Badger.

DEBS: I should mention that my husband's given name is David Derrick, but he's been called Rick since babyhood. Go figure. But it makes legal documents very confusing. Further complicated by the fact that we have different last names, as I am still legally Crombie, even though that was my ex's name. It puts me in a good place on the bookshelves:-)

RHYS: So confession time everyone--did you have a nickname growing up? What about your own kids? Are nicknames dying out?

HALLIE: No nicknames growing up. My daughter Naomi is sometimes Yomi. Molly sometimes is Molls. My husband has given me two. Smedley. Prunella. Why? I'm afraid to ask.