“I don’t know what my grandma name should be,” my friend Barb said to me over coffee years ago.

Mind you, her daughter was only six months pregnant at that point, but Barb was about to be a grandma for the first time, and she was taking her new role seriously.

“You know,” I said—reasonably, I thought– “the kid won’t even be able to say your grandma name for a couple years from now.”

Two decades have passed, and Barb is now “Bobbie” and her husband is “Paw” to their seven grandchildren.

Back in the 50s, I don’t know if people fretted about this.  It was “Grandma” and “Grandpa,” for the most part, or some version thereof, like “Gramps” or “Grandmother” or “Grammy” or “Gran.”  Sometimes there was an added descriptor.  My paternal grandparents were “Grandma and Grandpa Seilkop.”  My maternal grandpa was “Grandpa Gil.”  That was as mid-century modern as the nomenclature got.

But my maternal grandmother was not satisfied with such a common moniker.   She gave herself the grandma name of “Mootsie.”  I never knew another Mootsie, and I just checked:  Google doesn’t know any “Mootsies” either.

One time I asked my mother, “Why do I call her ‘Mootsie’ instead of ‘Grandma’?” My mother rolled her eyes, her disdain for her mother apparent.  “It’s because she thinks she’s too young to be a grandmother.”

Mootsie was in her early forties when she became a grandma, which wasn’t especially young for new grandparents in the 50s.  I think Mootsie had other reasons for making up this nickname, but those reasons died with her in 1980.

Nowadays, “Grandma” and “Grandpa” are soooo yesterday, fading away like “Mrs.” and “stewardess” and “fingernails on a chalkboard.”

Some of my friends’ grandnames are cute, like Oma and Opa, Bon-Bon and Pappa John, and Gigi and Papa.

A couple months before my granddaughter was born, my daughter Stacey pushed me to choose a grandma name.  I asked her why I had to decide now, why this was so pressing.  Why not let the child come up with a name? “You know,” I said—reasonably, I thought– “the kid won’t even be able to say my grandma name for a couple years from now.”

Well, it turns out you have to come up with a reference point so you can say, for example, “We’re going to Nana’s,” or “Ask Gran for an expensive fill-in-the-blank,” or “I think Grammy’s had too much to drink to drive you to school.”

My husband came up with his grandpa name right away: “Pops.”  This was a nickname Stacey came up with when she was a teenager and thought “Dad” was too childish or submissive or old school.

Hmmm.  I loved the Norwegian name for a maternal grandma:  Mormor,” pronounced “More More.”  It means mother’s mother, but I like thinking it’s a mother, but so much more.  The truth is, though, a grandma is so much less than a mother, and I know it’s best that I remember that.

Most of my friends are longtime grandparents, jealously guarding their own grandnames.  But they had plenty of suggestions for my grandma name.

How about “Lolli”? Marybeth said.  So Rick and I would be “LolliPops”?  That’s cute.  Kinda.

Another friend offered “Mops” to Rick’s “Pops”?  Or “Mopsy” as in Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. My daughter said if I didn’t hurry up and name myself, “Mopsy” was going to stick.  Oh, dear.

I approached this self-naming in the same way I came up with my kids’ names.

• Something unique but not weird.
• Something distinguished but a little playful.
• Something that can be spelled and pronounced easily.
• Something that can’t be morphed into an insulting or obscene word by bullies.
• Something that is uniquely me.

“Gigi” appealed to me, and I was ready to close the deal on this name until I was informed that “Gigi” is short for Great-Grandmother.

Then I thought, why not Mootsie?  I loved Mootsie, and the name’s unique, as Google proved.

I tried “Mootsie” out on my husband, and he gave me that look I give him that says, “You’re going to wear that?”

I tried out “Mootsie” on my daughter.  Dead silence.

“Well, then, how about “Bootsie?” I said.

“As in Bootsie Collins?” my husband retorted.

So, I did what I do with most of my major decisions.  I consulted books, the paper kind.

In What to Expect the First Year, I found the advice for baby-naming applicable to this grandma-naming business.  The authors recommend a less common, less trendy, but not unheard-of name.  They suggest you “go back to your roots.”  Mootsie?

They caution that you “mean what you name, and name what you mean,” so I moved onto a google search of the meaning of the word “mootsie.”

The Urban Dictionary says “mootsie” is slang for “vagina” and “fart.”  Well, that just won’t do.

I continued crowd-sourcing.  I sought the advice of my stepmother, my neighbors, my dermatologist, my hairdresser, my mailman.

I asked my writer friends at my monthly retreat.  They liked “Mootsie” and “Gigi,” but I could tell they thought I could do better.  Like when I read them a first draft.  Or a second.

Of the names they suggested, and there were many (some inspired by Shakespearean sonnets and 19^th century novels), I liked “Lovey.”  I want to be the grandma that is all about love. I want to be Diva Danielle’s Lovey, her loverly Lovey.

When I said it out loud, though, I couldn’t help speaking it with a British accent.  And when “Lovey” morphed into “Loverly,” I took on an Aliza Doolittle Cockney inflection.

“ Libby,”  offered my writing bud, Teri.  “You know, like Libby the Librarian.”

So if I become the “Libby” of Team Libby and Pops, will Danielle ask her mom one day, “Why don’t I call her ‘Grandma?’”

I can see my daughter rolling her eyes, because she often does when it comes to my hairbrained ideas. I don’t think she’d tell Danielle, “She thinks she’s too young to be a grandma,” because that is absolutely not true. Danielle was so long-awaited that I almost aged out of “Grandma,” right into “Gigi.”

Stacey might tell Danielle, “Because she was a children’s librarian—you know, the ‘lib’ of “Libby—and she is always wanting to read to you.  She started reading to you right after you were born. She has a whole library in her house just for you.”

And wouldn’t that be nice?

Or my daughter might tell Danielle, “Libby was born a long time ago, back when feminism was dawning.  Your grandma was kind of a hippie.  Maybe she didn’t even wear a bra, can you imagine?  She was what they called a ‘women’s libber.’  You know, the ‘lib’ in ‘Libby’?”

And that would be groovy, too.

Call me Libby.

Unless one day Danielle looks up to me and says, “Hi, Bootsy,”

What did you call your grandparents?  What do your grandkids call you? 

Other posts about family:
Turtle Soup for Christmas?
Three Weddings:  A Secret One, a Surprise One, a Long-Awaited One
Making Love:  The Truth About a 44-Year Marriage
Role Reversal on a Trip With Adult Kids