Terms of Endearment
It occurred to me last night that we all have some rather different terms of endearment we use for those we love or care about. You see, I talk baby talk to my Lexi. I also talked baby talk to my son when he was a baby and my nieces and nephew. Humans grow out of the baby talk era but my pet never does. So needless to say, I have a quite a list of terms of endearment that I use with Lexi. She is: sweetie pea, sugar plum, cute toot (don't ask lol), honey bunny, love bug, pretty kitty, good kitty, my striped girl, loosey goosey, cuddle buddy, snuggle girl, silly goose, and my sugar puddin'.
So this got me to thinking of the terms of endearment I've been called by my family members. And those are: snickle fritz, hon, Lady Astor, Kallee (my sister couldn't say my first and middle names when she was little), sweetie, K-K, Katrina, and sugar puddin (my grandmother gave me that one). Funny, when looking at that list my mother only had two: snickle fritz and Lady Astor which she called either myself or my sister so they were interchangable.
My son had a few special terms of endearment: Mr. Peepers and Snookums to be precise. My mother warned me very early (like when he was 1 week old) that some of those nicknames hung on for life so to be very careful what nickname I used. She also hated nicknames. I can understand that considering her grandfather dubbed her Runt when she was just a few hours old. lol She was called Runt for years and of course, after she shared the story with us we used it when appropriate. Such as when playing Monopoly: Rent! Runt!! the Rent!! lol She had one other nickname that she still is called to this day and that is Nunna. Her brother couldn't pronounce her name and while he can today, at 60 something years old he still calls her Nunna.
My dad was a freckled redhead. Those of you who are or have a family member who is a redhead know what teasing goes along with those ruby locks. His name was Charles so his list of nicknames were: Charlie, Red, Carlos (his daughters gave him that one), and Popsicle Louie. NO ONE ever called him Chuck. He didn't like that one for some reason.
My grandfather's name was Elvest. Not Elvis but Elvest. He had no middle name. People called him Pete. Go figure. He named his second son Elvest Junior but for some odd reason my uncle had a middle initial and signed his name E.D. But we all call him Uncle June. The youngest sister of the sibling group is my Aunt Duane. I bet I'm the only one in the world with an Uncle June and an Aunt Duane. :-)
Ok, I could go on and on about family nicknames, terms of endearment and just regular ole odd names but I won't. But I would love to hear your terms of endearment.
posted by kay_okc @ 12:32 PM
10 Comments:
Enjoyed your post, I love hearing about how families come up with nicknames. My grandmother did not like my name because it was not a proper saints name, so she said to my mother, looks like Mitch Miller to me...(whoever that was) and that's how i came to be called Mitch or Mitchypoo. My brother's name is Gary Bayard (Bayard being his middle name) and I call him Gary Bear, he has cerebral palsy and when he went to go get his ID, he honestly thought that was his true name and they issued his ID like that. I call my dog Simbalou but her name is Simba. I also call her booggerbutt. I called my ex-hubby loveybutt. I had a friend we called Fluff. I have a cousin named Cindy who I call Cinders. I call her daughter Snicklefritz and it doesn't matter how old she is, she's a teen now, she loves it that only I call her that. I have a best friend I call Muttley (a total endearment and she knows it). I had an Aunt Noogie and and Aunt Skeeze and they called my Grandma, their sister Pet. I call my mother Ornery Annery sometimes. Her name is Anne.
Like your blog!
Justin and I use honey for eachother.. Don't really know where that one came from, although my fosterparents used that for eachother as well so maybe that's it.
I call Jamie "goo." Or Jamie-Goo. Don't know where that came from either.
Cian is Bud or Buddy a lot. Although when he was little-little it was Bubba. Which is funny because I used to despise the name Bubba. Happily though, it morphed to Buddy.
Interesting topic.. My blog is named after one of my cat's nicknames, FanniePie. She really just has two nicknames, FanniePie and noodlegirl, her name is Fannie...
however my kitten, Scout, has a variety of nicknames... because she is such a monster one or two just doesn't cut it... usually she is the monster or stinker, but frequently stinkerbell, stinkerpie, monsterpie, crazygirl, fuzzy or hairball.
She has changed our english usage and forced us to use the word monster as a verb. Whenever we hear a noise we don't recognize someone will ask 'Scout, what are you monstering?'...
You're right about people, they out grown the baby talk, pets never do!
Kay, you are much kinder in your baby talk to Lexi than we are to Shiva, whom we often referr to as psychokitty, Shiva monster, and the destroyer. We also call her a bad girl. But in baby talk, so it's okay: "Who's a bad girl? Are you a bad girl, psychokitty? Yes you are. Oh yes you are, you bad girl psycho monster kitty, you."
But I must admit, we also call her cutie babies and sweetie babies. This is usually when she's asleep.
I suppose I could talk about my cats.
Callie, who is *my* cat, is short for Caliope. I call her a lot of things when I'm being particularly affectionate, but most of the time its Cal, Miss Cal (or Miss Callie), CallieCat.
We have a Demetrius that Justin named because he wanted an unusual name. But he quickly changed to Meeper, because he meeps instead of meowing. So he's Meeper, Meep, Meeps, Meeperhead. That and Evil kitty.
Milka is my baby, although she's now like 4 years old. I think the only nickname she has is when I call her kitten, or Miss Kitten.
my sister Miriam: Knerps (pronounced Kah-nerps) our cousins thought Miriam was too hard to pronounce!
me: Rebedel, Hecky-becky, Becca, Beck. I hate the nicknames for me. I love my real name!
Our pet bird: Blue Devil
my sister-in-law Twila: Pud (short for sweet as pudding)
Kay, you always bring up such interesting topics!
I've never had a nickname and always wanted one. In fact, no one in my family ever had a nickname. But then, I'm always a little leary about what kind of nickname I'd get - you know "crazy woman", "super crazy women" "the red queen" (from Alice in Wonderland - OFF WITH THEIR HEAD!)"- lol
People I like I eventually call sweetie or sweet pea. Sometimes I call Jim Moosebreath - can't remember where that came from.
Sugar - Sugarbear, Sugarbuns, Cobb Cat, Suggiebear,Suglet, Snugglebuns
Blueberry - Miss B, Missy B, Missy Blue, Blue
Rimsky - Skeet, Big Boy
Great Post! So which of those cute nicknames shall we call you?
My grandmother had a cousin called Pud. I don't know that I've ever even heard her real first name!! lol It's funny, my mother's family all have nicknames but she hates using nicknames. My niece, Caile is called Kit, my other niece Caitlin we call her Cake-in because she couldn't pronounce it when she was little. And my nephew Keaton, he's Buddy and Keatony. It's also odd that I named my son Michael and I refuse to call him anything else. lol I called him at work once and asked for Michael. They did not know who I was talking about. Then the guy "snapped to" and said Oh Mike!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr lol I named him MICHAEL not Mike. lol
Hi, Kay!
Met you at Susan's knit-in a while back and found the link to your blog from her's! What an interesting post! Funny...years ago I had more "pet names" for people and pets than I do now...hmm...something to ponder! Some for past pets have been scooter-pooter, peaches-ronies and lucky ducky. I do sometimes call my male yorie (official name, Cricket...) Cricky-poo. My grand daughter, Savannah is called Savy-Girl and she dubbed me Mimiwonton...thus the name on my blog. Most of the time she just calls me Mimi, but the wonton part sort of hung on with other family members. Love your posts and always check them out! Hope to see you at another knitting function soon when my life settles down a bit!
I forgot to comment about this. I am always saying "Thank you dear." and calling people sweetie and try save honey for DH, but sometimes it slips out.
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