I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the word on the street is I’m a grandfather. My daughter and her husband had a baby boy two weeks ago. Everyone is happy and healthy. They’re also stressed and lacking sleep. So, all is normal in their household. Enough about them. This is all about ME!!!

Since the birth of my grandson, the question I hear most is what is he going to call you? I answer with “I don’t know. I have a couple of years until he talks. I’ll figure it out by then.”

But, in actuality, I have been thinking it over. I have a few names that are out. My brother is PAPA to his grandkids. Too much confusion with two of them in the same family. ZADIE is also a loser. Whenever I hear it, I think of old men sitting on a park bench, killing time until they die. Remember the movie “Going In Style”, with George Burns and Art Carney? Those guys are Zadies. If you’re reading this and you’re a Zadie, no offense meant, it’s just not my style. Please keep reading and I’ll see you when I take my next walk in the park. I’ll even bring you some bread crumbs so you can feed the birds.

Finding the ones that are out is the easy part. Finding a great grandfather name is trickier. At first, I was sure it would be Grandpa. That’s easy, traditional, old school. But, I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be a hip, cool and now dude. For that, I need a hip, cool and now grandfather name.

I did some Googling and found a website called “Choose the Perfect Grandfather Name’.”  It has every name you can possibly imagine.

It starts with the traditional ones. I didn’t know that Big Daddy, Bompa and Bumpy were grandfather names, much less traditional ones, but it’s their website so fine, I’ll go with that. They also have names in other languages. Too bad I’m not French or Chinese because both Grand-pere and Ye-Ye have nice rings to them. Hmmm…but if Trump wins re-election, I might have to use the Russian word of Dedushka. That’s a lot to put on a small child, isn’t it? Eh…I’ll worry about that in November.

They have a third grouping of modern names. Now’s that’s what I’m talking about! That’s what I’m looking for! That’s what I need!!!

Check some of these out:
Ace
Boss
Captain
Champ
Rocky
Skipper

Really? Those are grandfather names? Good thing I don’t like any of them. Plus, I can’t picture my daughter ever saying to her son, “Honey, come downstairs. Ace is here.”

But, they do have a few that might work:
G-Dad
G-Daddy
G-Dawg
G-Dog

When you hear these names, you are thinking one of two things:
That’s a hip, cool, now dude
or
That man is fucking nuts. What’s the matter with him?

I’m going to lean towards the first one because that’s the guy I want to be. In my head, I can hear these words from my daughter to her son, “Honey, come downstairs. G-Dog is here.”

So as of now, that’s what I’m going with.

Later this week, I’ll go for a walk in the park along Chicago’s lakefront. I’ll see these old men sitting on a bench watching the birds. I’ll hand them some breadcrumbs with the words, “Hello Zadie’s, have a good day.” They’ll respond with a smile and say, “Thanks for bird food. Have a good walk, G-Dog.”

Now that’s what I’m talking about!!

Related Post: OMG! My baby had a baby!