I guess it's time to confess that BR and I call each other...LOVAHS or LOO. I know, okay? And if you think THAT'S gay, you should hear all the names we have for our dogs and kid. I don't remember the exact etymology, only that "lovahs" started as some unfortunate Boston-ism, and then progressed to "lovah-loo" and finally "loo". We NEVER call each other by our given names. I can't remember the last time he called me Tessie. Or the last time I called him by his Fake Hispanic first name (Fun fact: my boss always calls BR "Carlos". This is not his name. Not even close. Other than the Fake Hispanic thing. But hey, close enough for government work, eh?).
Anyway, I'm dying to know:
- What you and your significant other call each other
- Whether you recycle your terms of endearment. If you call your husband "baby", have you ever called any of your PAST lovahs "baby"? I have NEVER recycled. If you DO recycle, is there a statute of limitations?
PS-Can I get some kind of Boston-ized Spellcheck please? My current version is not at all happy with "lovahs". I DO have a reader at MIT (HOW?). Get on it, Codemonkeys!
53 comments:
One time, Mark was trying to call me both "cutie" and "hunny" at the same time and it came out "Chewy". Now we call each other Chewy.
Another time, Mark was trying to call me "baby" and "hunny" at the same time, resulting in "Bubby". Now we call each other Bubby.
One more time, Mark was trying to call me "hunny" and "baby" at the same time and it came out "Haiti". Now we call each other Haiti.
So, all of our nicknames sound really ridiculous but for some reason they were hysterical when first said and they all stuck.
1. I love the progression from "lovah" to a word that means the bathroom in "Britishese."
2. Never recycle. I can't fathom that someone would do that! It is like saying, "you are not quite special enough for me to make up something new, I'm just gonna call you what I called the last schmuck I dumped."
3. We, on occasion, also use something similar to lo-vah that we stole from an SNL skit.
4. I often refer to my hubs as the ever-vanilla "hon", or sometimes as "Pope Rich."
5. We should have a whole 'nother survey about what you call them when you are being the opposite of endearing.
I can already tell this is going to be awesome.
My favorites so far are "Chewy" and of course, "Pope Rich". Heh.
Oh, and we call our kids knuckle-chucks or knuckle-chuckles. It is a blend og knuckle-head and chuckle-head. A lady in Costco stopped me in Costco on Sunday with, "excuse me, but WHAT did you just call your son?"
I call Mike Dewey and he calls me Lewis, but I don't know the origin of either. For a long while, we also called each other Chuck, again, no idea why. The kids get Peaches, Peanut, Princess and Prince Charming on a rotating basis. Luke calls himself Mr. Luke, so we just follow his lead.
I call K honey which is pretty boring. however, I use it often when yelling for something from the other end of the house and now O yells "HONEY" whenever he wants his dad to get something for him (as in "HONEY I NEED MORE JUICE BOX"). I never really had a term of endearment for anyone else so no recycling. I call O lil man or goose
Bananafana-I call AD goose too. Also: goosey, gooser, and goose-ah.
My husband and I aren't creative in the least. Babe or sometimes a-hole.
I call my son Bubby, Richard hates that because I do it in public, too.
This isn't at all interesting, BUT:
I don't know how this started, but in middle school a friend of mine and I started using the word "hachi" as an intensifier. Like "Would you ever eat a worm? Never-HACHI!"
I was explaining this to my future wife, years later, and we somehow started using it. Only instead of "never-hachi" it kind of morfed into "never, hachi". So now we call each other "hachi" exclusively.
Each child of ours has been confused by this. A current toddler has even started yelling "ACHI!" to get our attention.
INTERESTING FACTOID: "Hachi" turns out to be "eight" in Japanese. So we've also thought about getting little 8 jewelry things, but the problem is that "88" is a white supremacist sign. (88 -> HH (eighth letter) -> Heil Hitler)
Anon-Are you serious, that is TOTALLY interesting! This shit is awesome! I love you people!
Well, my husband call me "Hon". He calls me "Michele" so seldom that it startles me.
I say "sweetie" alot.
We also call each other "Husband" and "Wife". (we stole that from Futurama) but only with fake jamaican accents
Since this is not my blog, I will use my daughter's name, dammnit! We DO call her Ducky ALOT, and that and Sabrina are all JD (all kinds of names revealed! I'm so reckless!) calls her.
I call her Sabrina-Bean, Breeeeena, Ducky, and Breena-Brat. Also, when she was a newborn, if i didn't get a boob in her mouth 5 seconds before she realized she was hungry, she'd cry so much she's get all read. So I called her Tomato Face.
When discussing her, we will often call her "the little wiggler" and "the little ankle biter".
My husband and I call each other either Skutie or Chutie. Skutie is an abbreviation of Skinny Cutie and of course the other is Chubbie Cutie.
We also call each other Rootie, Roots or Rooter (the "root" part is pronounced like: root - as to root around in something). This is what we call the pug dogs also....and has just been carried over to each other as well.
Oh yeah, also "Buh-ba" (not BUBBA) or Bubby. (think what you'd call a jewish grandma)
Also, I've been calling her sweetheart or "sweets"
TLA-JD like on SCRUBS? Oh my god dude, he is just BEGGING to be called a variety of girls names. PLEASE TELL ME YOU DO THIS.
NO!!! How could I have not thought of that???
The only thing I do is call him "Joseph" when I want to piss him off. The only one who does that is his grandma, so I say it just like her "Jo-Z-eph"
We call each other Honey, which I SWORE I would never use and of course, I am using it with my forever mate! That is a really long time to use a word you said you wouldn't use. It makes me mad when BG uses my real name, it means he is mad! We call SD Tooter, Toot, Toots or Pumpkin, isn't Tooter going to be fun when she is in HS!!!
I suggest "Josephine".
We're boring, and oddly formal . . . we tend to call one another "darling" or "dear" or "dearest." I know, what is this 1950? I don't even remember the last time I called him "Brett" or he called me "Caroline." Mostly it's "Darling." I seriously don't know how that happened, but also it seems to fit because I have never called anyone else "Darling."
Jason started calling me "Kid," as in, "Here's lookin' at you, kid," so I call him "Bogie" for Bogart.
When he's being a jerk, I call him "Mike" because he's usually trying to Micromanage me.
Other than that, we call each other "Dude," which apparently isn't appropriate for people in love to say to each other, because we've been questioned more than once about it.
My husband never calls me by my name but instead calls me Love. I call him either Sweets or Puddzie which is what my niece used to call cats when she was a toddler and then it became her cats nickname...so yeah, I call him a nickname of someone else's cat.
Quirky thing we do - you know that Universal Cat Calling Sound? We do that when we cannot find each other in stores or if we need the other person's attention in public. Calling names never work (mine is too common & he just doesn't hear me due to decades of his mother screaming at her kids...) so we do this & end up getting funny looks from just about every stranger in sight. But it works!
My son goes by Fellow, sometimes Liam Fellow, but mostly just Fellow. the husband gave him that nickname on his first night home from the hospital & we just use it cause it really fits him!
I wish there was some interesting thing my husband and I called one another - usually just standard stuff (hon or Kev). Now the names for our dogs and my child are sort of random - Santana, the crazed white balding Jack Russell mix is Banana Beans or Beans or Santana Banana... The actually used to be more and it is a wonder Santana even knows his name...
Matthew is Bear (or little bear) or pumpkin (little pumpkin) or bean (little bean - yes it gets confusing between the dog and my son... Opps!) Matthew also now replies 'I am your BIG pumpkin now!' Ekkk!
Lucy, the crazed lab/terrier mix, (don't ask) is Lucy Goosey (which is VERY appropriate if you met this dog), Luc, or Loopy Lucy.
Matthew has taken to calling the dogs - Luc and Santan-ey which I think comes from me making up pet terms for everything and using them in regular conversation...
Ed and I generally call each other Hon. Not much else. But I don’t think anything of it when he says something along the lines of “What’s up Slut?” because we’re just vulgar like that. He calls me S.L. (for Sara Lynne) as well.
We call Eddie “Spaghdmund”, a variation of Eddie Spaghetti that started when he was a baby, I would sing Edmund Spaghedmund over and over again. I also call him handsome or Freddie and my FIL calls him Buddy or Jr.
Caitlyn has many nicknames other than Cait or Catie. I call her Hazel because of her hazel eyes, and honey bear, to which she protests “I NOT HONEY BEAR!!”. Ed calls her onion, because well, she’s just like an onion, she can be deliciously sweet, or just plain RANK. Then there’s the requisite princess or beautiful or Baby Girl.
I have never recycled a term of endearment. My Ex before Ed was Sweetie. We called each other sweetie exclusively. It would be gross to call anyone else that ever again.
Oh I forgot the CATS!! We call Sebastion "Sabbie" or "Sabbie Labbie Ding Dong". Oswald is "OZ", "Ozzie" or "Stupid".
When I was growing up I had a cat named Licorice and we called her Licky, but my mother insisted on calling her Mississauga....explain that one.
My hubby calls me babe or hun or mushu.
I call him my love, honey, or tweak.
Recycling is icky but I imagine it happens out of habit.
I agree that it's icky. I can see it MAYBE for more common terms like "honey" "baby" "sweetie" or "dear". Obviously, the truly weird ones, which you freaks all seem to favor (because you are AWESOME), aren't really recycleable.
I've used both "babe" and "baby" in two separate relationships, which is borderline.
Yep, I've recycled. We use "babe" here pretty much all the time and I've used that in one other relationship. But it's not some personal, private "snookie bearkins" kind of name so I refuse to feel bad about it.
We also call each other "munch" as in "buttmunch". That term is way more endearing and only used when we are in good moods. That will never, ever be recycled even if Michael Vartan came over and told me he needed me to be the next super spy but only after I ditch this lame-o and marry him.
I imagine I probably have recycled, but after 13 years I flat don't remember what I used to call old high school boyfriends.
He calls me "my pet", hortense, and gertrude regularly. I mostly call him honey.
When we were first dating my little sister had a friend who used to refer to people as "honey lamb bone pie!" and we stole that and shortened it, so sometimes we call each other lamb bone.
Also googly bear and schmootzy-poo like in Monsters Inc.
Paco and I called each other "Dear." Nobody believes it because it sounds like something your 72-year-old great-aunt would say. He calls me by my given name pretty often, which appears to be out of the realm of normal judging from the FREAKAY shit I'm reading here. I call him by his given name too (which is not Paco) only with a "y" on the end. And in case you wondered, I never call him Paco. That's just a journal name. Now here's my freaky part: I actually call him "Fucker" a lot but in an affectionate way. Like, "Fucker, I don't care what we have for dinner." or "Fucker, did you drink all the beer?" Uh..wow. That looks really bizarre in print.
We call each other "hon" of course- it seems to happen inevitably once you enter into holy matrimony- but we also call each other "love" quite a lot. It happened first jokingly, because it seemed so formal and also slightly British, but now it's a firm habit.
We call Adelay Addy Bear, Adley, Ducky, and Addykins, and Eli goes by Chubs, Chubberkins, Butterball... Pretty much any nickname that could be hurtful once he gets old enough to understand it, as it clearly points out his, shall we say, considerable GIRTH and HEFT. We'll have to stop doing that, gosh!
This is fun! I like your names; they seem very homegrown, you know?
A. calls me "Honey Bunches of Oats" sometimes. We are both re-named, "Babe."
Somehow we manage to call Buster, "Goose" (cuz he's a silly goose) and I call Belle, "Bella Bella."
I don't recycle pet names; A. is my only Babe.
Tom HATES pet names. hates them. we used to call each other "fuckface" and "douchebag" -- charming, i know. till we realized that we were at stop & shop and i was like, "hey fuckface, can you get me two tomatoes?" and noticed everyone staring. now he calls me by my (FORMER!! i almost forgot i am married now!) last name. except for in front of his family, then her refers to me as "babygirl" just to give his father a heart attack from eye rolling.
i call him "love" a lot. and, when i'm very pissed at him, "love of my life."
no recycling. i did the "baby" thing with my last boyfriend and it's ruined forever now.
come to think of it, tom calls our cat "babygirl" too. TWO TIMER!
We have no terms of endearment for each other. I think we're a minority though. I don't know why, we just...don't.
However, I will add that I have a gazillion pet names for my daughter, and rarely ever call her by her name to the point that I am not sure she knows what her name is.
Every evening my husband greets me with "oh, Luuuucy..., you got some 'splaining to do!" and I reply with "Oh, Ricky!!!" in the classic Lucille Ball whine.
We are so strange.
But, we LIKE it.
Every evening my husband greets me with "oh, Luuuucy..., you got some 'splaining to do!" and I reply with "Oh, Ricky!!!" in the classic Lucille Ball whine.
We are so strange.
But, we LIKE it.
My husband and I call each other Sweets - in good times and bad. It can be said nicely or bellowed across the room in frustration. When he was younger and wanted to get my husband's attention, my son would often yell "Sweets? Can I (fill in the blank)? Evidently my husband and I need to use our actual names more around the house...
I call my son snookerdoodle (I don't even know where that came from) or Cutes.
I forget who said it, but yeah. When my husband actually uses my real name, it startles me.
I call him Smoochie, or Moochie Moo. But he is not allowed to call me "oo" words. So he does it occasionally just to hear me say: I am not an "oo" word! Yeah. Also, there is the requisite Honey and Baby.
I call the kids Brother or Jelly Bean. Sometimes I call Jelly Bean, Sugar Bear. Then I sing a Sugar Bear song. Mmmmhmmm. Or Lovey. I like to call the kids lovey.
This is great! My husband sometimes calls me "Chubs" sometimes, because we met through his brother over the phone and before we ever saw each other I told him I was on the chubby side. I just call him the generic "hon."
I call anyone and everyone under the age of 18, "hon" and/or "sweetie." And those over the age of 18 if I have been calling them that for years (nieces and nephews). It's the southerner in me.
My oldest daughter was "Munchkin," "Munch" for short. She's outgrown that now, though. But I do sometimes still pull out the "munch."
The next one is "Tessa Tink, the Stink-a-dink," "Tessa Tink," "Tink-a-dink" or just "Tink."
Third one is "Bug," "Bug-a-boo," "Sara Bara," "Gook-a-beek-a" or "Gook-a."
So far the last one is "Boo."
I call them all "Spaghetti head."
Oh, and I almost forgot: Like artemisia, I use "Honey Bunches of Oats." A lot.
If I ever call my husband by his first name, it totally startles him. It's always Honey and Sweetheart and Dude, between the two of us.
In the interest of appearing as awesome as all these other commenters (!) when we first started dating we called each other Mr. Shirt and Mrs. Shoe, because we once babysat a three-year-old who pointed to him and said, "You are a SHIRT" and the nonsense continued from there. They stuck for a little while.
We both call AJ Buddy, Goofball, Chef Alex (when he's wearing his chef hat)... and DH calls him "Little Job" or "Hot Rod."
I call my husband the following names on a regular basis:
Babe
Bebe (beh-beh)
Jackass
He calls me punkin or punk-a-lunkin.
We call each other mama or daddy when it's in regards to the kid.
I call the kid MaddieMoo, Fluffernutter, and Boo Bear.
We have a dog named Sam, and when he's particularly annoying, I call him Samuel L. Jackass.
I am ashamed to admit this, but my husbands name is Erik and I call him Polar Berik all the time. Or just Berik. Mostly he just calls me Hon...sometimes Sasspants if the mood fits.
With us it's the usual hon, sweetheart, pumpkin blahblahblah but on occasion Snugglebunny has been thrown around.
And no, that has never been recycled.
With the kid it's bear, so if he's hungry then he's hungry... bear. You get the picture.
Erin - regarding Tooter, I have a friend (known each other since grade school) who's nickname is Toot Toot (from the old country song..."Don't mess with my Toot Toot!" her dad used to sing to her), or Tooter - it's great fun! I don't think she's so keen on it now that we're 30, but I can't stop myself from calling her Toot. We both teach high school, and it's really hard for me NOT to call her Toot in front of her students LOL!!!
Hubby and I do the "honey' bit with a twist. We have added an "ahhh" in front of it and pronounce a long "o", so we're really calling each other "Ahhhohney"
We call our 5 month old girl Jilly Bean or Punkin Pie.
I confess I am a total recycler. I have called almost all of my former boyfriends 'baby' or 'honey' or, embarrassingly enough 'angel face.' Yes, I am a loser. I suppose I just haven't found someone special enough to deserve his own moniker? At least I hope that's the case, god forbid I have to face the cold truth that I am utterly unoriginal and boring. PS, lovah-loo, that is so damn cute. And disturbing.
My ex and I used to call each other "buddy" and even had it engraved into our wedding rings. We also used to say "You're my favorite person." But now I say that to my daughter. Because clearly, he is not. I also call Soph "love bug" or just "bug." I don't know why, but I like it. Then she says it back to me "You're my love bug, Mommy" and my heart melts.
Oh, and FB and W. call each other "Sugar." Don't ask me how I know that. It's disgusting, but mainly because it's them.
The husband and I call each other sweets and sometimes sweetie. I would NEVER recycle terms of endearment...my ex called me baby, which I really hated, so thank goodness the husband never called me that. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever called my ex any cute name....
Dog #1 is sweetie pie, big girl and the shortened version of her "formal" name.
Dog #2 is buddy, the buddy (when we are talking about him) and I like to put a "Mr." in front of his name. Since he has a human name, I think its cute.
Full disclosure of Dorkdom:
The Husband calls me "Wifey" but also "Boofer Lady" which is from a Dickens novel that we both LOVE.
More often than not I call him "Love" or "Love of my Live" because he is.
We call each other by name in front of other people but rarely at home.
The Cats. Oh dear. The cats have names but more often than not we call them Malenkaya and Bloshaya which are the Russian terms for "Little One" and "Big One" because they are. They absolutely are. I also call Agnes "Pudding Head" because that's all that she's got between her ears is mind-numbing pudding goodness. Leike is far to dignified for such a nickname.
There. Now you know what a complete dork I am. We nicknamed each other out of Dickens novels and I speak Russian. Mock away.
Dude. Am Dumb. Love of my LIFE not Live. Sorry. Have been much sick of late.
Here I was thinking we were all original with meowing to each other! We never do it in public, but when one of us gets home, or wants the other one to get in the shower, and sometimes on the phone.
As for names we call each other:
Baby One (but never just baby, often just One)
Beason (or Mr. Beason from a statue)
Hon
I babysat for a family one time years ago who quacked at each other when they got home, so another variation of the meow.
:o)
Torsten and I almost never use each other's names, either. In public we usually wind up saying "sweetie" (I call him that) and "cutie" (he calls me that). Cutie is short for cutie pie, and I can be any other type of pie as well. I call him babycakes sometimes, which started as a joke and (unfortunately) then caught on.
My new husband and I do not yet have such awesome pet names, but these are all very inspiring! :)
My favorite example of an awesome name in my own life, though, is what my Mama calls me: Fay Bird. Because when I was a baby I'd hold my mouth open waiting for food, like a bird. So she calls me Fay Bird, or just Bird. Hee!
She calls my sister Pie, sometimes with her name before it. No idea where Pie came from. :)
I haven't commented here before (hi! I am in Ireland, in case you'd like to know) but for some reason feel the need to confess that I call my husband Koo or Huz-BAND and he calls me Bobby.
Our real names are Debbie and John which seem a bit normal.
Yes, I feel better now I got that off my chest.
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