From the moment I was permitted to announce my daughter-in-law’s pregnancy, the questions came at me like water gushing through a firehose.
“What is your grandma name going to be?”
It’s not as though I hadn’t been thinking about what I wanted my grandchildren to call me.
I’ve always liked naming things. Taking foreign languages for 12 years, I was able to change my “French name” and my “German name” every semester. Drove my teachers crazy, especially considering that my name is already foreign sounding enough.
Growing up Catholic, I also got to choose my confirmation name. Boy, I really struggled with that one. I wanted Toni, as in Tenille, but that was shot down because she wasn’t a saint. I went with Catherine, as in St. Catherine of Siena, because she is known as a writer, a diplomat, and the patron saint of Italy. Since I love Italian food, that one made the most sense to me. Not once have I been called Catherine, unfortunately, unless it was by mistake.
I chose my children’s names well — Connor Michael and McKenna Grace; I’ve always had really great pet names: Tabitha, my rabbit with a twitchy nose (I was a big Bewitched fan); Pronto, my skittish black and white cat; Finley Francis, our gorgeous Golden Retriever; Dixie, my Louisiana-born West Highland Terrier; and Henrietta (Henri), my precocious Cavachon.
Let’s not even start on all my “Bar names,” you know, the ones you give to drunk guys at bars because they don’t care what your real name is anyway. I had some real doozies.
So, when faced, finally, with the opportunity to choose the moniker my beloved future grandchildren would shout with joy when they saw me on the doorstep, the name they would cry out for when they were pissed at mom and dad, the one they would toast at their weddings, I struggled.
My childhood nickname is Twinky. Yes, really. It’s far too embarrassing a story to tell you how that name came about, but it’s my brother’s fault. Until second grade, when I moved to Texas, all my school records were filed as Twinky Rettig. My cross-country move provided the opportunity to start using my actual name, Kersten. Instead, I chose to go by Kris. It lasted a month.
I thought Twink, which some friends and family members still call me, would be a cute grandma name. Turns out, “twink” is already in use. It’s a term used in LBGTQ+ communities to describe an effeminate looking young man.
Back to the drawing board.
I googled and asked around. Some of the more popular grandma names today are GiGi, Honey, LaLa, Lovie, CoCo, KeKe, Glamma, ZaZa, Tootsie, Bubbles, and Queenie.
No, not really a fit for me.
Traditional names such as Grandmother, Grandma, Granny, MeMaw, MawMaw, Nana, Nonna, and Grams were too dusty for me. Fortunately, no one suggested Big Momma or I’d have thrown a pie at them.
I liked Birdie, but my daughter-in-law hates birds. I seriously considered naming myself Homie, but my friends sternly talked me out of it (thanks, Ya-Ya).
Six weeks until D-Day, and I still didn’t have my grandma name picked out. I considered going on a retreat, taking mushrooms, and even paying a naming expert to come up with a name for me. I was getting desperate. The baby was coming and I needed to get myself a grandma name. She needed to know immediately, moments after her birth, what I wanted her to call me for the rest of her life.
My grandmothers were born and lived their entire lives in Louisiana. They were both French teachers and of French descent. MaMére was my paternal grandmother. She was formidable, well-educated and well-traveled. She spoke to me in French. Mimi was my maternal grandmother, and she always had a dish of jellied orange slices in her candy drawer and gave me my first taste of Barq’s root beer.
I recalled my relationship with my grandmothers, and it came to me. I want my grandchildren to call me Mémé, pronounced may-may, a portmanteau of my own grandmothers and a tribute to my roots.
I met Hadley James Cook on June 6, D-Day, less than 24 hours after she made her debut in Golden, Colorado where her parents live. She is perfect. I’m already madly in love with Hadley.
I hope she’ll call me Mémé someday, but if she calls me HeyHey or Lady or Hey You, I will always answer and come when she calls me. Whatever she calls me.
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