This paper designs observers for matrix second-order linear systems on the basis of generalized eigenstructure assignment via unified parametric approach. It is shown that the problem is closely related with a type of so-called generalized matrix second-order Sylvester matrix equations. Through establishing two general parametric solutions to this type of matrix equations, two unified complete parametric methods for the proposed observer design problem are presented. Both methods give simple complete parametric expressions for the observer gain matrices. The first one mainly depends on a series of singular value decompositions, and is thus numerically simple and reliable; the second one utilizes the right factorization of the system, and allows eigenvalues of the error system to be set undetermined and sought via certain optimization procedures. A spring-mass system is utilized to show the effect of the proposed approaches.