If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it. And in regard to my “grandfather name,” I was wrong. When Nora was born a couple of years ago, I said I would decide what she calls me. I would not—and I was firm—let a toddler botch my name and saddle me with an awkward, embarrassing moniker for the rest of my life. I—and I alone—knew the answer. After much deliberation, I settled on GrandBob—henceforth and forever. “Learn it, live it,” I instructed Nora the infant.

I announced this in a Facebook post, explaining my position to friends in a truly horrible rap. I didn’t say my name would be GrandBob in that farcicle post. I was going for ridiculous … and achieved it. It ended this way:
And the name that she will call me
Really fits me to a T.
Not Gramps. Not Pappy.
’Cause my name is Heavy B
(“Heavy B,” he said …
His name is Heavy B
Not your father’s Grandfather
’Cause he’s Heavy B instead)

Rap nightmares aside, our family agreed that my grandfather name was GrandBob. When anyone speaking to Nora referred to me, they used “GrandBob.” It was a sensible yet appealing name. I was set for life.

And then … she started talking. In her sweet, soft, little-kid voice, she began to assign meaning to her vocalisms. She expresses ideas, wants, and feelings with words that often make sense … and just as often do not. But they’re her words. And she’s her own person: a beautiful, wondrous child. When she says my name—when she instructs GrandBob and Nana where to sit or says, “Here you go, GrandBob,” it doesn’t come out as GrandBob. At 2, she simply can’t pronounce that name. But what she says is her name for me: It’s her expression of who I am. She says it in that little-kid voice—and she is firm—and I wouldn’t think of correcting her … because she isn’t wrong.

So as it turns out, I’m not GrandBob. And I was wrong to insist I was. Now I know the answer: I. Am. Jobba.