Different names for grandparents?

[OldBoring]

Yeah I think almost everyone in the Netherlands calls their grandparents "opa & oma".

My aunt from Netherlands uses the word "oma" when talking to me. I knew that word because my cousin taught me. But why? Does my aunt think that "oma" is a universal word for grandma?

Personally I didn't distinguish my grandparents by the place they live, but by their last names. However, my little sister used to talk about one of my grandfathers as "opa kangoeroe", because he lived in front of a supermarket with a big logo of a kangaroo.

This is odd for me, that a lot of countries distinguish by last name.

I think in Italy people distinguish with first name, e.g. nonno Paolo, nonna Anna.

In my family we also have non conventional ways to distinguish relatives.
For example, in Chinese the normal way is to use numbers for uncles and aunts, e.g. big aunt, 2nd aunt, 3rd aunt, little aunt (the last one), etc.
But there is an uncle we call "lower village uncle". Because all of my family is from the upper village, only he is from the lower village.
My mom calls my great-aunt "flower aunt". While I call her "flower great-aunt". Because she always dresses with flower pattern clothes.

[Iván]

I think in Italy people distinguish with first name, e.g. nonno Paolo, nonna Anna.

The same here.

I tend to use iaia which means grandmother in Catalan as "yaya" when I refer to my grandmothers with whom I usually speak Spanish.

Spanish:

maternal grandmother: yaya Y/abuela Y
maternal grandfather: yayo X/abuelo X
paternal grandmother: yaya Y/abuela Y
paternal grandfather: yayo X/ abuelo X

and in Catalan:

maternal grandmother: la iaia Y/l'àvia Y
maternal grandfather: el iaio X /l'avi X
paternal grandmother: la iaia/l'àvia Y
paternal grandfather: el iaio/l'avi X

[azhong]

1. In Standard Mandarin (both Mainland and Taiwan) 公公、婆婆 mean "husband's dad"* and "husband's mom"*.
*While the formal terms are 岳父 and 岳母 - these may help to avoid confusion.

So is the most common usage in Taiwan, Youngfun.

I've heard a Taiwanese friend using 公公、婆婆 for the grandparents ...

Seldom have I heard the usage in Taiwan.

The traditional Taiwanese terms for grandparents (both paternal and maternal) are 阿公、阿嬤 - in Minnan.

It's originally from Minnan (or Taiwanese), but now it seemingly works too in Mandarine in Taiwan, especially in casual conversation, to replace 爺爺 and奶奶 respectively.

I've seen a Taiwanese member with mixed usage: 阿公 and 奶奶:

你大伯就是這樣把命給玩掉了，那年他才29歲，9是個劫數，阿密陀佛，你正19歲，9真是個劫數。你父母又在外工作。你啊，好動，跟你大伯相同個性，我當初就跟你阿公說不要給他買機車。買車花錢不打緊，還帶走了我兒子。幸好你活過來了。你要幹麻？要幹麻你說，躺著別動，動多了傷口不好癒合。我特必找人去廟裡幫你求了平安符......
就這樣，奶奶嘮嘮叨叨，像是透過窗簾灑在病床上的陽光，曬著我也曬著她。
樓下的朋友記得他奶奶對他說過些什麼。

My little, late explanation, allow me please, Youngfun. I mixed them because this was a literate writing practice. The first paragraph was a spoken expression from the grandmother, who seemed not to be as well educated as the "I", and also for the second reason she was talking to her grandson, thus "阿公" was used, a more casual expression. As for the second paragraph, it comes back to the narration of the fiction and was narrated by the grandson, thus it swithched to "奶奶", a more formal form.

Your understanding about languages in Taiwan is basically all correct, Youngfun, and it impresses me very much.

[OldBoring]

Thank you very much, azhong.
I didn't pay attention that in your post you were reporting a dialogue, and then narrating.
Actually, before writing that I did some research on the web.

[Surtalnar]

Here in Germany several names for the grandparents are used:

- Großvater / Großmutter (formal)
- Omi / Opi
- Oma / Opa

For parents are used:

- Vater / Mutter (formal)
- Papi / Mami
- Papa / Mama
- Vati / Mutti
- Dad / Mum (americanism)

I personally use Omi/Opi to speak to my grandparents and Papi/Mutti to speak to my parents.

[Katleen]

Thanks to everyone who replied so far. It's been very interesting to read.

I would like to read about Japanese and Indonesian too, two languages I'm learning. But there are no native Japanese speakers here as far as I know, so no luck there. For Indonesian, I suppose many people will distinguish their grandparents by using regional words for them (from Javanese, Sundanese) instead of just the standard Indonesian words kakek (grandfather) and nenek (grandmother). I suppose they might also add first names (in Indonesian they also do it with 'Mr' and 'Mrs', like ibu Tina, 'Mrs. Tina', with first name instead of last. Not everyone even has a last name.) In Japanese it will be culturally out of the question to add a first name to the grandparent

[Levo]

In colloquial speech, we tend to say the family name or the given name before the term "granny/granpa"

Like, my great-grandmother was "given-name mama"
my paternal grandmother was "family-name (remember we put that in front anyway) mama")

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

This is odd for me, that a lot of countries distinguish by last name.

I think in Italy people distinguish with first name, e.g. nonno Paolo, nonna Anna.

Although we distinguished by the places where they lived, I think it's quite logical to distinguish by last name for two reasons:
- when you use the last name, you can say opa & oma + last name, it's more clear then using first names because then you don't know who belongs to who, plus it's shorter
- using the first name would imply that you would actually use their first name, which would imply that you would say 'je' and 'jij' in stead of using the polite form 'u'. I didn't even know the first names of my grandparents for a long time, but I do think nowadays children often use them because everything is more informal now. In the past children even used the polite forms for their parents, that barely happens anymore.

[Car]

Although we distinguished by the places where they lived, I think it's quite logical to distinguish by last name for two reasons:

We did that, too, when we were younger, but switched to last names later on.

- using the first name would imply that you would actually use their first name, which would imply that you would say 'je' and 'jij' in stead of using the polite form 'u'. I didn't even know the first names of my grandparents for a long time, but I do think nowadays children often use them because everything is more informal now. In the past children even used the polite forms for their parents, that barely happens anymore.

We use "du" instead of the formal "Sie", but still. I'm not sure when I learnt my grandparent's first names, it's not that my parents use(d) them to adress them, neither for their own ones nor their in-laws.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

We use "du" instead of the formal "Sie", but still. I'm not sure when I learnt my grandparent's first names, it's not that my parents use(d) them to adress them, neither for their own ones nor their in-laws.

I always avoid it, I've never been comfortable with saying 'je/jij' but 'u' would have sounded too formal (though my family from the other side uses the formal forms).... And yes, that has also something to do with it, how your parents adress them. I have always thought it was pretty weird that my father said 'ma' to his mother-in-law, I'd never do that with mine!

[Car]

I always avoid it, I've never been comfortable with saying 'je/jij' but 'u' would have sounded too formal (though my family from the other side uses the formal forms)....

I have that problems with friends of my parents. I've known them all my live, they use "du", but using it to adress them feels odd. What's worse is that some of them are former teachers of mine. In private, they still used "du", but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. So I always try to avoid using any personal pronouns altogether, but that sounds odd as well.

And yes, that has also something to do with it, how your parents adress them. I have always thought it was pretty weird that my father said 'ma' to his mother-in-law, I'd never do that with mine!

I agree, it does sound strange. Although I think it's only my mother who does it, not my father. He really cares about using the "correct" form instead of using the common one. He'd never refer to our mother as "Mama" when speaking to my sister and me, it's always "deine/ eure Mama" ("your Mum").

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I always avoid it, I've never been comfortable with saying 'je/jij' but 'u' would have sounded too formal (though my family from the other side uses the formal forms)....

I have that problems with friends of my parents. I've known them all my live, they use "du", but using it to adress them feels odd. What's worse is that some of them are former teachers of mine. In private, they still used "du", but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it. So I always try to avoid using any personal pronouns altogether, but that sounds odd as well.

And yes, that has also something to do with it, how your parents adress them. I have always thought it was pretty weird that my father said 'ma' to his mother-in-law, I'd never do that with mine!

I agree, it does sound strange. Although I think it's only my mother who does it, not my father. He really cares about using the "correct" form instead of using the common one. He'd never refer to our mother as "Mama" when speaking to my sister and me, it's always "deine/ eure Mama" ("your Mum").

Yeah, it does sound odd but still I avoid them

Oh, but I meant: my father calls his mother-in-law 'ma'. They do say 'mama' and 'papa' to us when they are talking about each other, I don't think that's so weird, except sometimes when it's also to my wife
'Je mama' would sound very childish in Dutch by the way, then they would say 'je moeder'

[OldBoring]

This is odd for me, that a lot of countries distinguish by last name.

I think in Italy people distinguish with first name, e.g. nonno Paolo, nonna Anna.

Although we distinguished by the places where they lived, I think it's quite logical to distinguish by last name for two reasons:
- when you use the last name, you can say opa & oma + last name, it's more clear then using first names because then you don't know who belongs to who, plus it's shorter
- using the first name would imply that you would actually use their first name, which would imply that you would say 'je' and 'jij' in stead of using the polite form 'u'. I didn't even know the first names of my grandparents for a long time, but I do think nowadays children often use them because everything is more informal now. In the past children even used the polite forms for their parents, that barely happens anymore.

In Italy the first name is also used to distinguish uncles and aunts.
Nowadays Italians use "tu" with their uncles, aunts and grandmother. But I think even before when the polite pronoun was used for them, the first name was used.
It may be a cultural thing, but I just feel odd to call someone in the family by the last name.
Plus, how do you distinguish all the aunts and uncles with the same last name?

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

This is odd for me, that a lot of countries distinguish by last name.

I think in Italy people distinguish with first name, e.g. nonno Paolo, nonna Anna.

Although we distinguished by the places where they lived, I think it's quite logical to distinguish by last name for two reasons:
- when you use the last name, you can say opa & oma + last name, it's more clear then using first names because then you don't know who belongs to who, plus it's shorter
- using the first name would imply that you would actually use their first name, which would imply that you would say 'je' and 'jij' in stead of using the polite form 'u'. I didn't even know the first names of my grandparents for a long time, but I do think nowadays children often use them because everything is more informal now. In the past children even used the polite forms for their parents, that barely happens anymore.

In Italy the first name is also used to distinguish uncles and aunts.
Nowadays Italians use "tu" with their uncles, aunts and grandmother. But I think even before when the polite pronoun was used for them, the first name was used.
It may be a cultural thing, but I just feel odd to call someone in the family by the last name.
Plus, how do you distinguish all the aunts and uncles with the same last name?

'all the aunts and uncles', I just have one of each (And their last name is another name than my last name, or the names of my grandparents)
But we use the first name for them. Also for the aunts of my mother by the way, though I do use the formal 'u' when I speak to them because I'm a bit more distanced from them than from my grandmothers. So now I realise it's more complicated than I thought, because what I said in the quoted post doesn't seem to be fit then...

[OldBoring]

Oh, sorry, coming from a Chinese family with 6 aunts and 2 uncles (+spouses) [born pre-one child policy in China] I though it was normal to have a lot of them.

[Car]

'Je mama' would sound very childish in Dutch by the way, then they would say 'je moeder'

Using "Mama" can also sound very childish in German.

For aunts and uncles, it's also the first name here. Not that I ever had do distinguish between them, if you don't count using it for relatives who actually aren't your aunt or uncle.

[kevin]

I use only the first name of uncles and aunts. When I say "Onkel/Tante ...", it's actually the uncles and aunts of my parents that I'm talking about. So I'm using the different form that my parents used to refer to them to distinguish them from my own. A similar thing happened actually with the grandparents: "Oma/Opa first name" are my own grandparents, whereas "last name-Oma" or "Oma last name" were the great-grandmothers.

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

Oh, sorry, coming from a Chinese family with 6 aunts and 2 uncles (+spouses) [born pre-one child policy in China] I though it was normal to have a lot of them.

Oh, that's okay. I guess most people in the Netherlands from my age do have more aunts and uncles, but my mother was an only child and my father only had a sister... But especially in catholic families they usually have plenty of aunts and uncles, sometimes more than thirty...

[Johanna]

Speaking of not knowing the first names of close relatives...

Since we have different words for all four grandparents and use them to address them too, I was probably like 7 or so before I knew their first names. Before that they were simply mormor, morfar, farmor and farfar. And it's so deeply rooted in me that I'm still a bit thrown off when someone calls them by their name.

Aunts and uncles are always called by their first name however, so no problem there. And everyone is "du", no matter familiarity, age or status.

[Car]

A similar thing happened actually with the grandparents: "Oma/Opa first name" are my own grandparents, whereas "last name-Oma" or "Oma last name" were the great-grandmothers.

I only got to know one of my great-grandparents and I was just a kid when she died, so I never knew if it was her last name or some place name...