: )
I became pa-in-law at a mature age of 8 when my 21 yr old nephew got married.

I hear you, after about 15 years I reestablished contact with a relative. Technically she is my mom's cousin, But given that she is way younger than my mom and only a little bit older than me, I refer to her as my cousin and call her by name.

I am guessing the absence of televisions back in the day has left us with all this confusion.

Shoot I was a great-uncle by the time I was 26.

My aunt went to a desi baby shower for her friend who was pregnant (obviously ;)) and her daughter was pregnant too. Mother and daughter baby shower. one way to bond.

5th grade Teacher: Your cousins…kids, you mean? Wouldn’t they also be your cousins?

Me: No. They’re my nieces.

I have had almost this exact thing happen to me. I'm telling my friend about my new baby niece and she says, "oh, I didn't know your brother had a baby!" So I say "no, it's my cousin's baby" and she just gives me this completely blank look.

Also, maybe only other folks of South Indian origin can appreciate this, but my dad always got a kick out of introducing his brother to non-desis, and having them be utterly confused at the fact that they were brothers, but had different "last names."

Mother and daughter baby shower. one way to bond.

Bad party planning. Two baby showers = lesser gifts. But it might also work to one's advantage if the guest list for both people were separate. That way people might have to bring two gifts, if they kinda know both people.

confused at the fact that they were brothers, but had different "last names."

Amen to that. After a point in time, I stopped telling non-desis that he was my brother. It saves a lot of headache.

Also, maybe only other folks of South Indian origin can appreciate this, but my dad always got a kick out of introducing his brother to non-desis, and having them be utterly confused at the fact that they were brothers, but had different "last names."

funny given that a lot of people who give these looks have a bunch of "ex's" in the family. different last names should be common in an american family given a high divorce rate.

Wait.. So, Americans refer to their cousin's children as cousins? That's so wierd!! I assumed that they would call a cousin's son - nephew, because I thought that was the norm throughout the world.

And yeah, what is that "twice removed" thing?

And yeah, what is that "twice removed" thing?

thats always f-cked me up.

Jackass who sat across from me: Is there anything normal about you, cow eyes?

what does cow eyes even mean? When i was a kid people would make fun of me with a fake bad indian accent. I grew up down the street from them. I never understood that. they called me "poor starving indian kid". Then I realized that these kids were growing up in trailors (nothing wrong with that. not trying to flame), and me in upper middle class suburbia. somehow i was "poor". confused me even more.

Yeah, trying to explain that we don't do second and third and once-removed and all that gets tiring after a while.

....not sure what became of these kids 10 years out of high school...

At 24, I am a grand-aunt(mother?) to a 2 year old :-).

BTW, has this ever happened to someone:- you go to a marriage and figure out that the bride is the groom's aunt?

It happened in my cousin's wedding. First time all the guests from the boy's side and all the guests from the girl's side were invited, 2 of the guests from opposite sides realized that they were related. So, they traced back the relationships until they figured out that the groom is my cousin's nephew

My mom is the youngest of eleven brothers and sisters, and I am an only child...sort of. My mom left my father right before I was born and came to America. Initially, We stayed with my Mom's brother who had two older sons. I started talking at an early age and would mimic everything my older 'cousin brothers' would say. When they called my uncle 'dad,' so did I. Since my uncle has no daughters he would be highly offended if I didn't call him dad. My own dad is long gone, so really there was no competition for the title. I spent many confusing lunches and recess hours trying to explain my faux father relationship at almost no avail!

Two baby showers = lesser gifts. But it might also work to one's advantage if the guest list for both people were separate. That way people might have to bring two gifts, if they kinda know both people.

I think they had to take two lots of gifts. Or it would have looked bad.

what does cow eyes even mean? When i was a kid people would make fun of me with a fake bad indian accent

someone tried to insult me once by calling me a curry eater, I thought for a second and said, “your right I am, try again mate”.

One of my eldest cousins, is about the same age as my dad, he is not really a close cousin but always called him uncle until some smart-arse pointed out to us, that is not technically true.

I have a few I'm-older-than-my-uncle cases in my family. But only one where the "uncle" is indeed the mother's brother.

In my family's system, cousins, no matter how many times removed, are brothers and sisters. But if X and Z are cousins of Y through different parents, that's usually considered no relation at all.

In the system of my wife's family, though, X and Z could be considered siblings! And this chain can be continued ad-infinitum (U-V-W-X-Y-Z). Everybody is either a "marry-able" cousin (other family) or un-marry-able cousin (same family, hence brother or sister). This seems to be from the time when there were only two families in the village and marriages could not be in the same family. Today, only the nomenclature survives.

My mom is one of nine so i understand your pain. All my cousin's kids are my nephews and nieces not just "cousins". I call my father's younger brother's(who is 5 yrs older) wife Bhabhi but thats not correct cuz she is my chachi (aunt).

In the system of my wife's family, though, X and Z could be considered siblings! And this chain can be continued ad-infinitum (U-V-W-X-Y-Z). Everybody is either a "marry-able" cousin (other family) or un-marry-able cousin (same family, hence brother or sister). This seems to be from the time when there were only two families in the village and marriages could not be in the same family. Today, only the nomenclature survives.

my community is the same way. although i would never hook up with or marry a "marryable" cousin. would be icky for me.

I've experienced the "what? your cousin's kids are your cousins, not your nephews" confusion before, and assumed this was just an Indian thing. But then I learned that my Colombian, Brazilian, and Puerto Rican friends also called their cousin's children their nieces/nephews.

I think the once-removed thing is someone from a generation ahead of you. For example, your mother's cousin would be your cousin once removed.

When they called my uncle 'dad,' so did I. Since my uncle has no daughters he would be highly offended if I didn't call him dad

When they called my uncle 'dad,' so did I. Since my uncle has no daughters he would be highly offended if I didn't call him dad

BTW, has this ever happened to someone:- you go to a marriage and figure out that the bride is the groom's aunt?

Hold on, let me get my popcorn.

Ok, I am ready, tell me more, tell me more.

Family Tree Irrevocably Mangled by Trump Scion...The NYPost would have been went with something like
Baby Barron Trumped by Newer, Younger Apprentice

i'm sure

Don’t ask me what the specific title for Father’s Younger Brother’s Wife and all that other confusion is, though. I’m as perplexed as non-desis when it comes to that. ;)

English names

Hindi names

If you really want to see a confusing family tree. Just look at Days of Our Lives.

Phillip is Shawn uncle, which would make him Belle and Shawn daughter grand uncle. Phillip is the brother of both Bo and Billie and they used to be a couple. Lucas is the cousin of Hope and Billie sister. Hope half-sister Julie is also her stepmother.Belle and Shawn are a couple and Belle half brother Brady is also Shawn cousin. Rex and Cassie are twins and they are both half siblings to Sami and Lucas who are married. I could go on.

The desi angle to this is that my aunt watches this show and she get me hooked.

Ha!

I trump you all!, I have a grandfather younger than me. B/c of my great great grand-father's second mairraige, I had a great grandfather who was younger than my grandmother and his youngest son is younger than me. Go figure!

Come to think of it this is why we have population explosion in the sub-continent! Our ancestors have been producing babies all the way from age 20 till age 60!

aww perez, trent, and popsugar are my favorites.
gotta get the 'buzz'..
reading that crap makes my life look like a fairytale...

Our ancestors have been producing babies all the way from age 20 till age 60!

yup, they didnt need Viagra. They had jadi-buti(not to be mistaken for booty)

i think they had booty too.

Indians view family/relatives very differently. My dad would always make me refer to my cousins as cousin-brother, cousin-sister. And he often times had nephews around his age or aunts that were closer to him in age. Also, I don't know about anyone else but I was instructed to call my parents elder siblings Pappy or Mummy after their names, i.e. Joy Pappa & Podi Mummy, as if they were like my own parents. Younger male siblings esp. of my parents were referred to as Chachan (brother) because they were considerably younger than my parents. Those aunts and uncles that were middle siblings got the plain ole Aunty and Uncle titles. Thought that was interesting since in American culture I have never seen a seperate title of respect given to parent's older siblings. In other immigrant cultures I have seen grandparents not just called Grandma or Grandpa but titles such as Papa or Poppy.

My partner is Maori and all cousins children in Maori culture are also called nephews and nieces. He is the youngest of ten children and has 150 first cousins so that is a lot of nieces and nephews! The generation you belong to is important, it should not be acceptable to call an older niece or nephew auntie/uncle though European culture has undermined this.
The general term for undefined relatives beyond the immediate family is 'whanaunga', after that you start getting into hapu and iwi (subtribes and tribes).

And yeah, what is that "twice removed" thing?

Ok, so my Irish friend explained this to me because according to her, the "removal" terminology is used fairly frequently in Irish families. If there is a generational difference, the term is "removed" by however many generations. If there is a lateral difference, it is degrees. So, your first cousin's kids are your "first cousins-once removed." Your first cousin's grandkids are your first cousin's twice removed. Your cousin's cousin is your second cousin. Which means that your second cousin's kids would be your second cousins once removed. Of course, I think this is a bit more confusing. The way we did it in my family is any blood relative who was my parent's age or older was an aunty or an uncle. Any blood relative who is closer to my age is a cousin. If someone is on the cusp, you just pick whichever feels right.

In Zimbabwe's Shona culture, we also refer to cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. I do think it's kind of cool that we call our father's brothers, "Big Father" or "Little Father" depending on whether they're older or younger than our father. Same with "Big Mother" and "Little Mother", though I forget those refer too. (Patriarchy divvies up honorifics by the Y chromosome once again ;) )

I personally feel these and other titles create a closer psychocultural link to family members than titles like uncle/aunt, and cousins-removed etcetera etcetera etcetera. :)

On our last visit to India we were greeted at a cousin's house by a beaming young woman holding a bouncing toddler and telling him "Look! There's Nana and Nani!" I looked around to see to whom she was referring only to realize to my shock that she meant me and my SO. To explain, since our previous visit the cousin's son, our nephew, had married and now had a child to whom we were ofcourse, grandparents.

Also, I don't know about anyone else but I was instructed to call my parents elder siblings Pappy or Mummy after their names, i.e. Joy Pappa & Podi Mummy, as if they were like my own parents.

Same thing in my house. Everyone was and is called the same way. Name followed by relationship.

What is weird is that I address certain relatives - Dad's parents, His sister and my Aunts (Dad's sister in laws) with more respect. Neenga vs. Nee (Aap Vs. Tum in hindi).

My uncles (dad's brothers), my parents and my mom's dad got "lesser" respect.

Never figured out why, but that is always how it has been.

I consider my first and second cousins my brothers and sisters, which logically forces me to regard their offspring as my nieces and nephews.

THANK you, anna!
I constantly go on and on about my adorablicious nieces and nephews, but then people get confused and ask, "Wait, I didn't know your brother or sister was married!"

How difficult is this to understand? My parents' cousins are like siblings to them. Their children are my cousins, too, just as my first-cousins are, and their kids are my nieces and nephews. Voila! The hell is this "twice-removed, etc." drama anyway?

The NYPost would have been went with something like Baby Barron Trumped by Newer, Younger Apprentice

hahaha HIGHFIVE, sirc!
and Ba, that was such a great story. You do indeed trump us all, so far, yaar.

In Zimbabwe's Shona culture, we also refer to cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. I do think it's kind of cool that we call our father's brothers, "Big Father" or "Little Father" depending on whether they're older or younger than our father. Same with "Big Mother" and "Little Mother", though I forget those refer too.

Revolution, my (Pakistani) cousins use those names for their aunts and uncles, too! But I don't know any other Pakistani families that do the same, so perhaps it's just my cousins. They call their mother's big sister vaddi ummy [Big Mother] and their father's older brother vadda abbaji [Big Father].

My uncles (dad's brothers), my parents and my mom's dad got "lesser" respect.

That's interesting, and I've observed similar things in my own family. For example, my mom refers to her brothers (much older than her) as "neenga" (i.e. Aap), but her father as "nee" (i.e. Tum).

Also, my spouse uses "nee" for his mother, but "neenga" for his dad.

Try explaining everyone that you had the same last name as your husband before you got married. Its pointless. The question always comes back "Are you sure you are not related?" Duh, no - there is about a billion of us all over the world with the same last name (Mistry) and no we are not all related!

I've been a 'chachaji' ('uncle') since I was eleven years old. By the time my parents were married, they each had nieces and nephews that were in their teens. My father, at 32, married a little late (while his older sister was married around 19, and she was several years older than him). And on the other side, my mother's eldest sister, my eldest aunt, was 16 years older than my mother, and probably just 14 years or so younger than my maternal grandmother, and my aunt also married earlier in her life than my mother did.

So, as my eldest cousins began having kids, I became, successively, either a mama or a chacha, all before I had reached my teens. It was the effect of small-town to big-town migration, rapid forced change, within a generation, to developments in the economy, education, professional environment, female entry into the workforce, etc. The social adjustment from all that, and more, is still under way, and we are all dealing with its effects...

for me it's not the 40 some cousins (mom has 55 firsts), or the numerous 2nd cousins who are 5-8 years old than me that's hard to explain, it's all the first cousin marriages. Granted most of these took place in the context of of my diaspora-strewn family where you might never see some of your first cousins, but there is such an 'ick' factor involved in ANY explanation of this phenomenon to literally anybody raised in the US. Anybody else have this problem?

n Zimbabwe's Shona culture, we also refer to cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. I do think it's kind of cool that we call our father's brothers, "Big Father" or "Little Father" depending on whether they're older or younger than our father. Same with "Big Mother" and "Little Mother", though I forget those refer too. (Patriarchy divvies up honorifics by the Y chromosome once again ;)

Also true in Karnataka. Chikkappa (little father) and doddappa (big father) are the younger and elder paternal uncles. Similarly chikkamma and doddamma.

In Kannada, the word for nephew is the same as the word for son-in-law (aLyaa). Up until recently, it was normal for a guy to marry his mom's brother's daughter. Hence, the term was valid. Even now, in quite a few SOuth Indian communities, the maternal uncle "gives away" the bride (his niece) - akin to signing away his "rights". :-)

Revolution, my (Pakistani) cousins use those names for their aunts and uncles, too! But I don't know any other Pakistani families that do the same, so perhaps it's just my cousins. They call their mother's big sister vaddi ummy [Big Mother] and their father's older brother vadda abbaji [Big Father].

yasmine Further examples of awesome parallels in our one big human family! :) Baba mudiki (Little Father), Baba mukuru (Big Father) Amai guru (Big Mother) and Amai mudiki (little mother)...Aw, I feel so brown right now, it's like turning cartwheels of cultural joy! :)

It's the same in most southern languages, I think..."big father/mother" and "little father/mother" for your parents' older and younger siblings respectively. I suppose the names make a lot more sense if you consider how the extended family would have all lived together at one point.

I also like that Indian languages have different words for "aunt", as in your father's brother's wife has a different name/title than your father's sister. It makes it easy to immediately know who someone is referring to, without any additional questions.

SDM, that explanation made so much more sense than 90% of what I've been told! If people had just said it's about moving up/down or side/side on the family tree, it woulda been a lot easier to comprehend!

I used to have the hardest time explaining how I had so many aunts and uncles on my mom's side given that my mom has only one biological sister and one biological brother. Whew.

Further examples of awesome parallels in our one big human family! :) Baba mudiki (Little Father), Baba mukuru (Big Father) Amai guru (Big Mother) and Amai mudiki (little mother)...Aw, I feel so brown right now, it's like turning cartwheels of cultural joy! :)

Similar patterns in Swahili:
Baba Mkubwa / Baba Mdogo (Big/Small Uncle - older/younger than father) and
Mama Mkubwa / Mama Mdogo (Big/Small Aunt - older/younger than mother - though also used for co-wife rankings in polygamous families)

grand-uncle at age 16
try and beat that fo shizzle

For example, my mom refers to her brothers (much older than her) as "neenga" (i.e. Aap), but her father as "nee" (i.e. Tum).

I called my dad "ada". It scandalized everyone, but he thought it was adorable. :)

i'm the same - still don't understand the 'removed' thing as far as cousins go. and the 'first, second cousin' scenario - when i was a kid i thought it was an order-of-preference thing.

my mom is the seventh of eight, so my older uncles/aunts are the same age as everyone else's grandparents...
and I'm really confused as what to call my cousin's children. I just call them my cousin's babies I guess.
I have always marveled about how complex the desi family naming system seems to be compared to that of a non-desi's ;)

Re#43
"In Kannada, the word for nephew is the same as the word for son-in-law (aLyaa). Up until recently, it was normal for a guy to marry his mom's brother's daughter......"
This is correct, except it is qualified with "sodara" meaning sibling. e.g One's nephew would be referred to as sodara aLiya and niece, sodara sose etc.

My dad was married previously, so I had a half-sister (may she now rest in peace) who was 30 years my senior by the time I was born, and I had a neice who was 10 years older than me, and a bunch of cousins many years older than me, and I played with all of their children, so this post very much described my family.

Add in now the fact that my father-in-law just adopted too kids the ages of my own children, and now my kids have an uncle and aunt the same age as them and they hang out and play like brothers and sisters...

since, we're all contributing honorific titles in our families. here's mine.
my family is hindu-christian mix and there are variations depending on where in kerala you're from, but this is how nayar hindus (my dad) refers to relatives
dad's elder brother- velliachan, his wife- velliamma
dad's younger brother- kochachan, his wife- kunjamma
dad's sister- mami or ammayi, her husband- maman or ammavan
grandfather- appuppen or muthashan or muthachan
grandmother- ammumma or muthasi or muthachan

syrian orthodox christians (my mom)
mom's elder brother- vellichachan, his wife- velliamma
mom's younger brother- kochuchachan, his wife- kunjamma or kochamma
mom's sister- kunjamma, her husband- chachan
dad's sister- ammayi, her husband- chachan
grandparents are technically velliammachi and velliappachan, but most kids now use appachan and ammachi

can anyone else who is malayalee tell me if this is true in their family. i'm curious as to how it changed in mine because we are mixed and also because of regional differences within kerala.

amen! my mom's siblings married in their twenties, but she waited till she was 37 (lucky me), and was 42 when i came along...which means, yeah, i'm in the same boat as anna...nephews 6 years older than me, 60-year-old cousins et al...me mangled too, i guess!!!

Also, maybe only other folks of South Indian origin can appreciate this, but my dad always got a kick out of introducing his brother to non-desis, and having them be utterly confused at the fact that they were brothers, but had different "last names."

Ummm, can someone please explain this to me? I know, I know... in my defense, I'm a non-desi married to a North-Indian boy (and chachi to an adorable niece).

I have a feeling the "removed" stuff is only used in Anglo-cultures. I'm from a Slavic country, and of course I think of my cousins' children as nieces and nephews.

Not sure if someone one-upped me already. My neice had a baby...so what am I to her? Her grand/great aunt (maybe a koach-amma?)... I dunno...

Still trying to figure out if you are supposed to call older neices "chechy" still...

Any insight?

Ummm, can someone please explain this to me? I know, I know... in my defense, I'm a non-desi married to a North-Indian boy (and chachi to an adorable niece).

It's because of the way naming conventions work in the south. Let's say a South Indian gentleman is named P.N. Krishnan. Krishnan is actually his first name, the P stands for Puliyur (a place, probably his ancestral village) and N stands for Nagesh (his father's first name). His brother is going to be P.N. Vijayan (the P and the N stand for the same thing). To an American (or even a non-South Indian), this would seem odd, because technically, the two brothers have the same first names (P.N.) but different last names!

Let's say a South Indian gentleman is named P.N. Krishnan. Krishnan is actually his first name, the P stands for Puliyur (a place, probably his ancestral village) and N stands for Nagesh (his father's first name). His brother is going to be P.N. Vijayan (the P and the N stand for the same thing). To an American (or even a non-South Indian), this would seem odd, because technically, the two brothers have the same first names (P.N.) but different last names!

That's very interesting! Thanks for explaining it, hema.
How would the names be listed on a passport?

"Let's say a South Indian gentleman is named P.N. Krishnan. Krishnan is actually his first name, the P stands for Puliyur (a place, probably his ancestral village) and N stands for Nagesh (his father's first name). His brother is going to be P.N. Vijayan (the P and the N stand for the same thing). To an American (or even a non-South Indian), this would seem odd, because technically, the two brothers have the same first names (P.N.) but different last names!"

this isn't true for all south indians. it doesn't work that way in my family. my uncles (father's and mother's side) all have the same last names. i think what you said above depends on which part of south india you're from.

i think what you said above depends on which part of south india you're from.

Yes, of course. Goes without saying. I should have been more specific. In any part of the south where people don't use caste identifiers or "house names", you're likely to encounter the problem I described above. In other cases, not so much.

I was a grandma(grandaunt?) at 18 :)
hehe!

Not Desi (though I love this blog for some reason), and my parents' cousins are my uncles and aunts, their kids are my cousins, and my cousins' kids are my nephews and nieces. And the grandchildren of my grandparets' cousins are my counsins too! It seems it's just generally a non-western or non Anglo-saxon way to conceive of family relationships, since (for me at least) there is a lot of importance attached to the hierarchy between relationships. Jumbling everyone who's not immediately related into the "cousin" catch-all takes that away.

Also, to add to the craziness of my family tree, my uncles and aunts on my father's side span in age from 7 (1 year older than my youngest brother) to 55. On my mom's side the diff is "only" 20ish years, and my mom's older sis was pregnant at the same time as my grandmother. My youngest uncle is already a great-uncle, and the craziness will only get worse with my generation...

I am so glad to hear other people experienced the "you never told me you had SO many brothers and sisters, why are they in India and you are here?" problem as a child. I also call my cousins kids my nieces, which throws people off who know that my bio brother is only 17.

MuraliMannered...speaking of intra-family marriages, and you know all you Southies have it in your family too, my paternal grandparents were first cousins before they got married--absolutely cute couple. And i think my great uncle married some sort of niece-cousin of his (not sure how they are related). It makes naming relations on that side extremely confusing! My brother and I just end up calling people by their age range (really old--grand-titles, mid age-aunt/uncle title, and everyone else by their name) We also have the whole generational thing because my mom's uncle is basically the same age as she is so she calls his wife sister-in-law (mani, babhi). My dad was only 15 years younger than my patti and so he mentioned that when he was little he used to call my great-grandmother 'adu ma' or 'that mom' and my grandmother 'akka'(didi, behn, etc) for a long time.

It was the effect of small-town to big-town migration, rapid forced change, within a generation, to developments in the economy, education, professional environment, female entry into the workforce, etc. The social adjustment from all that, and more, is still under way, and we are all dealing with its effects...

Chachaji, you are so right.

P.S. I never got the 'cow eyes' insult but i did get the 'cow lover'(as if that was something bad) and 'curry pooper.' (which, lets face it...happens)

Is there anything normal about you, cow eyes?

In Arabic, "cow eyes" connotes beauty. IIRC, there was some breed of cow in pre-Islamic Arabia, called "Maha," that had large, white eyes surrounded by kohl-like coronas. It's like "doe-eyed," I guess.

That'd be a neat name for the daughter of Arab & Brown parents: Maha-Maha -- Grand Cow Eyes.

Anglo culture leaves me totally cold when it comes to the way they view family relationships. You can tell a lot about how important something is to a culture based on its vocabulary for that concept. For example, eskimos having several words for snow (which is sort of a myth but still illustrates my point), because snow is important to them. All this 'once-removed, twice-removed' stuff is bullshit in my opinion, and speaks to their utter coldness as a people, and the extreme individualism they take life to. I hate their catch-all phrases like 'uncle' and 'aunt', which have no emotional resonance, and no nuance to them. I also can't stand that once you get further than 1st cousin level in that culture, you're already in the realm of 'distant relative'. I love how in the northern Indian cultures at least (I'm not too familiar with southern Indian nomenclature), virtually every single relationship has its own term. In one or two words, you can express a relationship that would take you whole sentences in English. And women when they get married have a whole new bunch of terms for their new family...jeth/jithani, nand, etc. Bhabhi/devar, jija/sali, etc. are all such rich terms. I have some THIRD cousins I know, and when their kids call me chacha or mama, it really makes me feel like there's a connection there, across all those generations. These terms inspire warmth and a feeling of relatedness. In gora culture I don't think too many people even know their 3rd cousin.

Since feminine nouns are more likely to end in 'i', how about Mahi mahi