Grandparents Day Trivia
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99 free Grandparents Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
National Grandparents Day in the United States falls on the first Sunday after Labor Day, and it exists because a West Virginia housewife named Marian McQuade spent years badgering governors and senators until Congress gave in. Poland got there first, with a Grandma's Day invented by a magazine in 1964. This Grandparents Day trivia covers the holiday's history at home and abroad, the science of why humans have grandparents at all, what grandma and grandpa are called from Manila to Stockholm, and the most famous grandparents in fiction, from Heidi's Alm-Uncle to Grampa Simpson. Every answer is sourced and explained.
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Q 01In the United States, National Grandparents Day is observed on which day?
First Sunday after Labor Day
First Sunday after Labor Day. Founder Marian McQuade pictured homemade cards and family reunions, and was adamant that the day should never be commercialised.
Q 02Which US president signed the first National Grandparents Day proclamation in 1978?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter signed it in August 1978, capping a campaign Marian McQuade began in 1970; the mother of 15 had once run for Congress herself.
Q 03Marian McQuade, founder of National Grandparents Day, was a housewife from which state?
West Virginia
West Virginia. In 1973 it became the first state to proclaim a Grandparents Day, at McQuade's urging, five years before the national one.
Q 04Often sung at Christmas, 'Over the River and Through the Wood' describes a trip to grandfather's house for which holiday?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving. Lydia Maria Child's poem sends the sleigh 'to grandfather's house'; later singers swapped in grandmother, and some versions swap in Christmas too.
Q 05Marian McQuade campaigned for a national Grandparents Day mainly to ease what?
Elderly loneliness
Elderly loneliness, above all in nursing homes. McQuade said the day was not for grandparents like her to get presents; her lobbying had already won a National Shut-in Day for the housebound, proclaimed in 1972.
Q 06The 'grandfather paradox' is a famous puzzle in stories about what?
Time travel
Time travel. If you went back and killed your grandfather before he had children, you would never be born to make the trip, which is why some argue the past cannot be changed.
Q 07What is the official flower of US National Grandparents Day?
Forget-me-not
Because that flower blooms in spring, people usually give seasonal flowers instead on the September holiday. It is also Alaska's state flower.
Q 08Which soul singer wrote 'Grandma's Hands', a 1971 tribute to his own grandmother?
Bill Withers
Bill Withers called it his favourite of everything he wrote, and it found a second life in 1996 as the sample behind Blackstreet's hit 'No Diggity'.
Q 09Which country celebrates Dzień Babci, or Grandma's Day, on January 21, with Grandpa's Day the day after?
Poland
Poland. The custom spread in the mid-1960s after a Poznań newspaper gave actress Mieczysława Ćwiklińska, then playing a grandmother on stage, a cake and flowers and declared a day for grandmothers.
Q 10Which country's Grandmothers' Day was invented in 1987 by the coffee brand Café Grand'Mère?
France
France. The marketing idea outgrew its maker: the day reached French calendars, and by 1999 the brand was keeping its own name out of the promotion.
Q 11Italy's Festa Nazionale dei Nonni on October 2 coincides with which Catholic feast?
Guardian Angels' Day
Guardian Angels' Day. Italy's 2005 law also set up a national prize, awarded by the country's president each year to ten grandparents for outstanding deeds.
Q 12Spain and Brazil mark Grandparents' Day on July 26, the feast of which saints, the grandparents of Jesus?
Saints Joachim and Anne
Saints Joachim and Anne. Neither is named in the Bible: their story comes from the second-century Gospel of James, which has them long childless before Mary's birth.
Q 13Who declared a World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly in 2021, held each fourth Sunday of July?
Q 21Alan Arkin won an Oscar as the foul-mouthed grandfather in which 2006 road-trip comedy?
Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine. His character dies partway through the trip, and the family smuggles the body out of a hospital window so they can still reach the pageant.
Q 22A 'granny knot' is the unreliable, mis-tied version of which everyday knot?
Square knot
Square knot. Tie both halves in the same direction instead of mirroring them and you get a granny, a weaker knot that can slip or jam without warning.
Q 23Most people have how many great-grandparents?
Eight
Eight. The slots keep doubling, so about 30 generations back there are a billion of them, more than the world's whole population then, and the same ancestors must fill many slots.
Pope Francis
Pope Francis. Catholics can earn a plenary indulgence on the day by attending a Mass for the elderly or by visiting someone who is alone.
Q 14The phrase 'grandfather clause' comes from Southern US laws of around 1900 that restricted what?
Voting
Voting. The clauses exempted men whose forebears could vote before 1867 from new literacy tests and poll taxes, protecting poor white voters while shutting out Black ones.
Q 15Which British monarch became known as 'the grandmother of Europe'?
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria. Her nine children married into royal houses across the continent, so the First World War pitted her grandsons George V and Kaiser Wilhelm II against each other.
Q 16Which US president called the grandmother who helped raise him 'Toot'?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama. 'Toot' was short for tutu, a Hawaiian word for grandmother, and Madelyn Dunham died two days before the 2008 election that made him president.
Q 17Which actress played Violet, the Dowager Countess and grandmother of the Crawley sisters, in Downton Abbey?
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith said she never watched the series herself: seeing her own performances was frustrating, she explained, because she always spotted things she would do differently.
Q 18Which US president was the grandson of an earlier president?
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison. His grandfather William Henry Harrison died about a month into his term in 1841, the shortest presidency of all; Benjamin served a full four years.
Q 19Which animated film centres on the magical Madrigal family and its matriarch, Abuela Alma?
Encanto
Encanto. The family's magic began the night Abuela Alma fled an armed attack that killed her husband, and she spends the film terrified of losing her home a second time.
Q 20Which 1960s sitcom featured Granny, the feisty mother-in-law of Jed Clampett?
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies. The actress behind Granny was less than six years older than Buddy Ebsen, who played her son-in-law Jed.
Q 24Which relative shares about a quarter of your DNA, the same as a grandparent?
Half-sibling
Half-sibling. You share one parent instead of two, so the overlap is half a full sibling's 50%, the same quarter that passes down two generations from a grandparent.
Q 25Fossil teeth suggest far more humans began living to grandparent age about how long ago?
30,000 years ago
30,000 years ago. Adults of grandparent age became about five times more common then, and one theory is that elders' knowledge, such as where to find water in a drought, helped groups survive.
Q 26What do you call two people whose grandparents were siblings?
Second cousins
Second cousins share a pair of great-grandparents. Anthropologist Robin Fox reckons that about 80 percent of all marriages in history were between second cousins or closer.
Q 27The 'grand-' in grandparent entered English around 1200 from which language?
Anglo-French
Anglo-French. Its graund dame, a grandmother, reached English first, and the later 'grandmother' pushed out the Old English ealdemodor, literally 'old mother'.
Q 28In the Philippines, what are a grandfather and grandmother called?
Lolo and Lola
Lolo and Lola. Filipino children traditionally greet them with mano, bowing to press the back of the elder's hand to their own forehead and ask for a blessing.
Q 29In which language is a grandmother called mormor or farmor, depending on the side of the family?
Swedish
Swedish. Mormor is literally 'mother's mother' and farmor 'father's mother', so a Swede always says which grandmother is meant.
Q 30In Hindi and Urdu, which pair of words means your mother's parents?
Nana and Nani
Nana and Nani. Hindi and Urdu name relatives by side of the family: a mother's brother is Mama, while a father's younger brother is Chacha.