What do you call your grandparents?

10th May: None of my grandparents have ever been called by the traditional terms people tend to use.

At the age of three, I decided to call one of my grandmothers “Suntan”. This is because my cousins called her “Tantan”, which I thought boring.

You know how it is, name’s stick. So we all started referring to my gran as Suntan – even she embraced the name, signing her Christmas cards, “Love from Suntan”.

So Suntan became the norm and I never thought anything of it. That is, until this morning.

On the latest entry of the diary I kept in 1994, which we play out on a Tuesday and Thursday, I refer to my “Grandma Suntan”. Jez was surprised.

“Your grandma was called Suntan?!” He asked incredulously. “Why on earth would you give her such a random name?!”

I replied with what I’ve already told you, protesting that it was perfectly normal to give grandparents nicknames. And, boy was I vindicated.

The texts, tweets and Facebook comments flooded in, with loads of brilliant examples of people giving nicknames – not only to grandparents, but to mums, dads, husbands, wives and children too!

We had so many I can’t share them all here with you. So I’ve put together a list of my favourite five names for grandparents, from all the ones we heard about this morning:

1)      Aunty Jumbo – Rosie called her gran “Aunty Jumbo” because she refused to be called Grandma and loved elephants!

2)      Grandma on a Bus – Sarah has always called her gran “Grandma on a Bus”, because they had to get a bus to her house. It stuck and she remained Grandma on a Bus even after they bought a family car!

3)      Nanny Scratchcard – Jayne called her grandma “Nanny Scratchcard” because she couldn’t pronounce her real surname, “Setchfield”. So Nanny Setchfield became Nanny Scratchcard. Cute.

4)      Nanny Bouncer – Lottie’s grandma had a lurcher dog called Bouncer. Because of this, Lottie’s nan was always known as Nanny Bouncer – even after the dog died and new dogs came along!

5)      Nanny Fidget – The name for Liz’s grandma came about because she couldn’t say her grandmother’s actual name, Bridget. So Bridget became Nanny Fidget.

What did you call your grandparents? Can you beat any of these for randomness?!