岳父、岳母、公公、婆婆

[Kenny同志]

Could anybody tell me what you call your father-in-law and mother-in-law? Is it okay to call them by their names?

Thanks

[crazy-meiguoren]

Calling your parents-in-law by their first names would not be good in most cases. Most Chinese families don't even call each other by their first names. Most Western families don't call their parents-in-law by their first names. (I must confess to violating my own advice: when I was married, I called my parents-in-law by their first names. It never was an issue, and I wasn't comfortable with calling them Mom and Dad. They didn't raise me - if they did, my screen name would be criminally-insane-meiguoren.)

This topic on another forum might give you some insight as to what most Chinese families expect from their sons- or daughters-in-law. A less traditional family might give you more leeway. Even so, please refrain from derogatory names, no matter how difficult the relationship may be.

[carlo]

爸爸、妈妈 in my case. Felt really strange at the beginning but then, well, here's the way it's done.

[rezaf]

俺爸，俺妈

[Kenny同志]

Thank you guys, but what do you call your father-in-law and mother-in-law in your culture? I guess most of you from the west have more or less the same way to address them. Ooh and you might have mistaken me for a westerner. No, I am Chinese and of course, I know we call our father-in-law 爸爸 and mother-in-law妈妈. I am just curious about your ways calling them.

edit:

Thank you very much Crazy Meiguoren for the link. It is very helpful.(I noticed the link just now)

[aristotle1990]

"Mom" and "dad", generally.

[Kenny同志]

谢谢你，亚里士多德。

[aristotle1990]

甭谢了，吴kenny。

[Kenny同志]

How do you know my surname is 吴？ :blink:

[aristotle1990]

我有特异功能。

[Kenny同志]

No wonder! Yeah, you got it right. Haha.

[马盖云]

Here in USA (northeastern section, in case its any different down South or out West), we mostly just use their first names. They might say "Just call me Dad/Mom" when you first get married, but most people I know just use their names. I guess it depends on your formality and closeness of relationship.

[aristotle1990]

Yeah, you can call them by their first names too.

[crazy-meiguoren]

You're welcome, Kenny. I now understand that you are looking for the Western way of how we call our in-laws. Americans have adopted more informal approaches in the last 30 or 40 years. It's becoming more common to find people calling their parents-in-law by their first names, although Mom and Dad still remain the names of choice.

I don't know what the trend is in Europe. (One western country does not represent the entire West, no matter what we might think.) Maybe our European members can tell us what goes on in their portion of the West?

[Daan]

Here in the Netherlands, I think most people would call their in-laws by their first names. You can't do that when you're meeting them for the first time, obviously, but I think they'll probably tell you to stop saying Mr. and Mrs. after a while (or even right away).

[Kenny同志]

Many thanks to each of you. I always thought you never call your parents-in-law Dad and Mom. It’s all clear now. thanks.

[Don_Horhe]

In Bulgaria, traditionally, you call them mom/dad, but nowadays this seems to be the exception rather than the rule; they're mostly called by their first names.

[Kenny同志]

Thank you Don for your feedback.

[liuzhou]

I can't possibly tell you what I call my Chinese mother-in-law on a family forum such as this!

But my own son-in-law and daughter-in-law call me Dave, which is confusing as my name is Frank!

[Kenny同志]

Thank you Liuzhu for your feedback.