Why do we refer to Aunts and Uncles by their first name, but not Grandparents or parents?

We always called my grandparents (dad’s side) by their name – - Grampa Bill and Grama Ellen for my father’s side of the family. Not so for my mom’s.

I grew up referring to my grandfather as Grandpa (last name) and Grandma (last name). I’ve heard other folks refer to grandparents by Grandma Ann, or whatever.

Growing up I called my aunts, Aunt Firstname, and my mom and dad;s best friends were also Aunt and Uncle Firstname. My parent used Grandpa Firstname as a way to clarify who they were talking about, but when I directly addressed them I just used Grandpa.

I think it is just custom or tradition. Some of it might go back to the old country the people are from. Plus, back in the day people had lots and lots of aunts and uncles and sometimes names were repeated in families. Grandparents were often not all alive by the time grandchildren were born. Maybe that is partly why with aunts and uncles we use their names and grandparents we don’t. That’s all just a guess.

My husband only uses uncle or aunt (tío or tía) when addressing his uncle or aunt directly, he doesn’t use their name. He’s from Mexico, I don’t know if that is true for most of the country. His dad often calls him son.

I think it depends on the family.

It depends on what your Ma and Pa called them.

Putting aunt or uncle before their Christian name identify’s them and is respectful. I would not have been allowed, nor would my own kids have been allowed to call aunts and uncles by the given name alone. I only had one aunt and I called her aunt xxxxxx until her death.

Because your family said it was so @SnipSnip.

As a young girl I felt like using their relationship identifier was a way of knowing they were special in your life. @SnipSnip mentioned using it as a sign of respect, but I associated it with love and kinship.

I can see how Aunt Firstname is used as a sign of respect though. Especially, in parts of the country where children never call an adult by only their first name.

Clearly it varies, but some people have far fewer grandparents than they have aunts and uncles, so “Grandma” tends to be specific enough, while “Aunt” would be several people, even on the same side of the family, without a name,

I stopped calling my aunts and uncles by their titles and so now it’s just first name. “Hi Carole” etc. I only had one set of grandparents so they were just “grandma and grandpa.” My daughter had only one set of grandparents so they were Nana and Popop but she calls the aunts by their titles and we refer to them that way.