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Title: Grandparent  
Author: World Heritage Encyclopedia
Language: English
Subject: Family, Ancestor, Grandchild, Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 July 31, Genealogy
Collection: Family
Publisher: World Heritage Encyclopedia



Grandparents are the parents of a person's father or motherpaternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing creature who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic grandparents, eight genetic great-grandparents, sixteen genetic great-great-grandparents, etc., although the numbers will be lower in cases of pedigree collapse. In the history of modern humanity, around 30,000 years ago, the number of modern humans who lived to be grandparents increased exponentially. It is not known for certain what spurred this increase in longevity, but it is generally believed that a key consequence of three generations being alive together was the preservation of information which could otherwise have been lost; an example of this important information might have been where to find water in times of drought.[1][2]



The youngest grandmother in the world is Rifca Stănescu, a gypsy from Romania, who at the age of 12 gave birth to her first child, a girl called Maria. Maria, in her turn, gave birth to an child at the age of 11, thus making her mother Rifca - the youngest grandmother in the world at the age of just 23 years.[3][4][5][6]


  • Titles 1
  • Great-grandparents 2
  • History of the term 3
  • See also 4
  • References 5
  • External links 6


A grandfather teaching his granddaughter to use a kick scooter



In many parts of Pakistan and India, maternal grandparents are called Nana and Nani. Similarly, paternal grandparents are called Dada and Dadi.

A grandmother playing with her grandson

Numerous other variants exist, such as Gramp, Gramps, Grampa, Grandpap, Granda, Grampy, Granddad, Granddaddy, Grandpappy, Pop, Pap, and Pappy for grandfather; Grandmom, Grandmama, Granny; Gran, Nanny, Nan, Mammaw and Grammy for grandmother. Gogo can be used for either, etc.

Given that people may have two living sets of grandparents, some confusion arises from calling two people "grandma" or "grandpa", so often two of the other terms listed above are used for one set of grandparents. Another common solution is to call grandparents by their first names ("Grandpa George", "Grandma Anne", etc.) or by their family names ("Grandpa Jones", "Grandma Smith"). In North America, many families call one set of grandparents by their ethnic names (i.e., Hispanic grandparents might be called abuelo and abuela, French grandparents might be called papi and mamie, Italian grandparents might be called nonno and nonna, or Dutch and German grandparents might be called Opa and Oma). Mandarin-speaking Chinese Americans refer to maternal grandparents as wài pó (外婆) and wài gōng (外公) and paternal grandparents as nǎi nǎi (奶奶) and yé yé (爷爷). In the Philippines, grandparents are called lolo (grandfather) and lola (grandmother), respectively.



Timurid conqueror Babur seeks the advice of his grandmother.


To avoid a proliferation of "greats" when discussing genealogical trees, one may also use ordinals instead of multiple "greats"; thus a "great-great-grandfather" would be the "second great-grandfather", and a "great-great-great-grandfather" would be a third great-grandfather, and so on. This system is used by some genealogical websites such as Geni.[8] One may also use cardinal numbers for numbering greats, for example, great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother becomes six-ex-great-grandma

Individuals who share the same great-grandparents but are not siblings or first cousins are called "second cousins" to each other, as second cousins are the grandchildren of one's grandparent's siblings.

History of the term

The use of the prefix "grand-" dates from the early 13th century, from the Anglo-French graund. The term was used as a translation of Latin magnus.[9] The prefix "great-" represents a direct translation of magnus to English.[10] In Old English, the prefixes ealde- (old) and ieldra- (elder) were used (ealdefæder/-mōdor and ieldrafæder/-mōdor). A great-grandfather was called a þridda fæder (third father), a great-great-grandfather a fēowerða fæder (fourth father), etc.

See also


  3. ^ World's youngest granny is just 23 | The Sun
  4. ^ Gypsy wife becomes world's youngest grandmother... at 23
  5. ^ Woman, 23, Becomes World's Youngest Grandmother | Fox News
  6. ^ O romanca de 23 de ani, cea mai tanara bunica din lume
  7. ^  
  9. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 2013-03-24. 

External links

  • Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
