NEW YORK — There are two times in life when everyone gets a new name: once as a child, another as a grandparent.

How well you handle the latter is up to you.

What to call the grandparents? Every family seems to answer differently. Some choose a name from their cultural tradition. Sometimes, grandparents decide on a name themselves. Other times, it's a precocious toddler who comes up with the endearment that sticks.

"This issue has been going on since I was pregnant," moaned Kim Rubin, a mother in Mamaroneck, N.Y. Her twins are now 21 months.

"My mom hates the idea of Grandma — wants us to call her by her first name — but I just cannot do it," Rubin said. "We call her Grammy right now, but we are all hoping the twins will come up with something better."

In the meantime, since her father is called Grandpa, her husband's father is looking for his own moniker.

"He's playing around with it — Grandpa David, Grampy — he's going to get back to us," she said.

The Internet can provide some inspiration; sites for Grandparents Magazine and The New Parents Guide offer comprehensive lists.

Choices for grandmothers include Abuela (Spanish); Oma (German/Dutch); Bube (Yiddish); Nonna (Italian). Grandfather can be Da (Irish); Jidu (Arabic); Opa (German/Dutch).

Some languages are specific: NaiNai is Taiwanese Mandarin for paternal grandmother, while Weipo is the maternal grandmother. Nice and simple, no fights over who gets to be called Nana.

When toddlers come up with names, they often involve phonetic repetition: Kwa-Kwa, Paw-paw, Pop Pop, Baba for Grandpa; or mangled pronunciations — Manga for grandma. One grandfather named Nicholas was christened "Icky" — hey, it's hard for kids to pronounce that "n" sound.

Many grandparents delight in the names given to them by toddlers. David Van Taylor, a documentary filmmaker in New York, said his daughter Simone didn't call his father anything until she was 2, when she turned to him and said "C'mon, Poppy Bear."

"It stuck," he said. "The whole family now refers to him that way."

The oldest grandchild tends to dominate the name-calling game, but younger sets of grandkids may not follow suit.

And spouses and grandparents may nix a nickname for all kinds of reasons: They might just dislike it. They might feel it belongs to someone else in the family. Maybe it sounds too informal or too traditional.

"My dad did not want to be called Pop Pop — my late grandfather's nickname — and was coming up with all these crazy names, but I had to put my foot down," said Alexandra Como Saghir, 31, of Brooklyn. "Now he loves it, especially since my son Luke can now say his p's."

Her mother's nickname is not coined yet, however, because "she is too young and glamorous to be Grandma." Saghir said the whole thing was "driving my husband crazy — he does not know what to call my mother."

What about addressing grandparents by their first names? Some families are horrified by the familiarity, while others swear by it. It's especially appealing to baby-boomer grandparents or those in their 50s who love having grandchildren but just can't face hearing the words "grandma" or "grandpa."

And what about step-grandparents? That can be sensitive, with some people not wanting to share a traditional endearment with a late-comer to the family. Some families try a variation on the first name — like Dua for a stepmother named Julia — since that doesn't compete with anybody else's nickname.

Whatever you do, don't give toddlers any ideas.

Susan Zaslavsky says her mother made that mistake with granddaughter Aniella.

"She can call me by whatever name she'd like except `Nana.' I loathe the sound of Nana," Zaslavsky quoted her mother as saying.

Aniella giggled and yelled "Nana!"