Favorite Terms of Endearment

What are your favorite terms of endearment to call or be called?  Do you have any unique ones you are willing to share?

Depends on the dice roll in Scategories!

Best game ever.

Kids get called / have been called:
Sprog
Sproglette
Squirt
Squirtle
Munch
Munchkin
But mostly these days, Snowflake but that's not really a term of endearment . . .

When I'm cold in bed and want my husband to warm me up, I call him meat blanket. Does that count?

Don't remember where it came from, but my husband quite often calls me rubber boot.

I guess we're not the most romantic couple. 😂

kooka shamooka-mook

I tried these on my future wife back in the courtship days, with limited success.

I just stick with Dear. He however well he is also traditional and calls me Skat which in Danish means treasure, or tax. But of course in English scat means something else entirely, the first time he called me that I had to ask what the *?!+* he meant.

Skandi Rogers wrote:I just stick with Dear.

I never call dear hubby Dear, I told him the reason is I am usually saying, "Deer!" As in watch out for that deer.

My parents didn't use terms of endearment and I don't remember dear hubby's parents using them either.

My mom's bigger pet peeve was when someone called her "Hon" because she said it was a term for German soldiers.

My brother-in-law used them excessively when we were in restaurants.  He called all the waitresses, "Sugar".

we've spent the last 25 years calling each other "old man/woman" in several different languages, because it was funny.
Now that we are actually old it's time to look for a new nickname. Bitsy Pookums is a bit of a mouthful but I'm taking notes here otherwise.
(in this house, if either of uses the "normal" honeypie-darling-shmookie-etc nicknames everyone including the dog runs for the hills: that's a sign someone is pissed and the fur is going to fly)

"My Love"...

It is even how my spouse is listed in my cell phone address book, and every time he calls the phone announces 'call from My Love'.

I must say I really dislike it when people I don't know call me 'darling'. I'm not their darling at all! Why do they do that!

My husband/dog/niece I call "poppet". I gather its a term for a doll. My headmaster at primary school used to call us all that and I guess it stuck with me.

I have noticed that terms of endearment do have quite local flavours, especially comparing German ones to those used in the Spanish or English speaking world. Comparing those terms (and in general, rhymes, songs, tales) with other nations, I see that in other regions animals and especially bugs have a more negative connotation than here.

My husband and I call each other "Schatzi" (treasure), but many around us call their dears: Schneckerl (little snail), Käferchen (little beetle), Bärchen (little bear), or Spatzl (little sparrow).

Most common however I would say are Schatz(i) and Herz(ilein and similar), meaning heart or maybe Engelchen (little angel)
It is not common at all to call other people than your spouse those terms.
I did always use lots of terms of endearment for my own children and also to other children who were visiting. Some of them reacted very astonished as apparently they were not called that in their homes (or because that crazy lady just used those words, who knows!)

Tereza Okava wrote:we've spent the last 25 years calling each other "old man/woman" in several different languages, because it was funny.
Now that we are actually old it's time to look for a new nickname. Bitsy Pookums is a bit of a mouthful but I'm taking notes here otherwise.
(in this house, if either of uses the "normal" honeypie-darling-shmookie-etc nicknames everyone including the dog runs for the hills: that's a sign someone is pissed and the fur is going to fly)

Back when I was about 25, dear hubby started using "my old lady" when talking to his friends.  I was not going to put up with that so I put a stop to that kind of talk.

Now using that in a foreign language would have been a lot of fun.

Though dear hubby doesn't know any foreign language and I only know Spanish.

Mujeres viejas for women.

Anciano for old man, according to Mr. Google.

Though I feel we are long past trying that now.

Anne Miller wrote:
Mujeres viejas for women.

Anciano for old man, according to Mr. Google.

(Mi) viejo/vieja is mostly used for the parents, although there might be people out there who also use it for the spouse.

I do however know a couple of people who actually call their spouse "gordo/gorda" (or "gordi"), literally meaning fat - and it is really meant as term of endearment!

I use 'my lovely wife'

I use 'bud' with my son sometimes.

We had a neighbour who taught the five year olds at the village school and she called the children "twinkle".  I would have loved to be called "twinkle" by a teacher when I was five.

Now I use it with our dog and he gets all wiggly and waggy.    

Anita Martin wrote:(Mi) viejo/vieja is mostly used for the parents, although there might be people out there who also use it for the spouse.

I do however know a couple of people who actually call their spouse "gordo/gorda" (or "gordi"), literally meaning fat - and it is really meant as term of endearment!

I don't remember the term from when we lived in Mexico as it has just been too long.

I remember my favorite song was "Besito Si Besito No" which is "Little Kiss Yes or No"; Beso being "Kiss".

Favorite romantic terms of endearment I’ve been called:

Honey baby darling

Love Sponge (from Buju Banton’s song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rND-XQsRSgw)


Non romantic terms of endearment are many as I nannied and taught for many years.

Nancy Reading wrote:My husband/dog/niece I call "poppet". I gather its a term for a doll. My headmaster at primary school used to call us all that and I guess it stuck with me.

Well, technically it's the name for the voo-doo dolls that people poke pins in...

Sarah Elizabeth wrote:Now I use it with our dog and he gets all wiggly and waggy.    

I think this thread needs more info on what pet names we use for our pets!

I could go on all day about what I call my dog. Often he's Turkey Butt, or Scabby McPoopfoot, or sometimes Baba Yaga (when I tie a kerchief on his head) but most often he's pig, piggy, porquinho, porquito, or whatever porcine variation happens to roll off my tongue. My neighbors initially thought we had a pig, because I was always calling the piggy.

Well the first 30 years of marriage it was usually baby doll.
Now she likes ole girl. (with due respect of course)
Funny how things change.

My children (now grown up) are still referred to as "sunshine". Since I began learning Norwegian I call Mr Ara "kjaere min" (my dear). He used to call me "Pixie" but not since I became older and greyer.
In North East England "pet" is a common term of endearment.
The one I hate is "lovey" as I think it sounds condescending, unlike "love".

One boyfriend tried calling me "babycakes". I put a clear and immediate stop to that kind of language, the relationship lasted only a few short weeks after that.

My husband and I call each other "cutie", which I like. I also have him in my phone as "Superman", which he likes and makes me smirk.

I have invented no end of cute nicknames for my kids over years--cutiebug, sillybutt, grumpybutt, crazyhead. Of course it's fairly apparent how these arose during the many and varied scenes and situations of childhood. My favorite invention is "scraggamuffin", as my kids are true permies and diehard dirt lovers, also they are fans of water conservation so they avoid bathing whenever possible.

Pet names for dogs:  MONKEY is the generic term for all mine, as they get up to all sorts!

Hi Jordan,
I have been watching and enjoying this thread that you started even though I did not think I had anything to contribute. I have been single for several decades now. But I realized your question said.... “What are your favorite terms of endearment to call or be called?  Do you have any unique ones you are willing to share?” You do not mention whom you are referring to and you are asking for unique examples. So I finally decided that I would like to share mine. It is definitely unique! And I thought it might give some of you a chuckle.

It's like this. I worked construction for about 16 years. I was an electrician from 1984 until 2000. Needless to say there were almost no women on the job back then and I was not welcomed with open arms. But the fact of the matter is we are all humans and humans are not so great at dealing with new stuff/change. We get rather nervous and scared and anxious about new stuff. Stuff like me.

For about the first 10 years I was put in a truck, by each of my employers, by myself doing service calls. This kept me pretty far away from the guys and kept the peace a bit but it got to be pretty lonely at times. But it turned out I was really good at doing service calls which most electricians aren't. So that was good. Then I changed jobs for about the 47th time and began working on a long term job, a condo project which meant the guys had to actually get used to having me around.

As had happened before, it didn't start out well. They were nervous and upset about me and I was so very bad at handling this kind of situation. (I finally learned how to totally  overcome this situation YAHOO!... but that is a whole nother story) Anyway, after a couple of months a guy said to me.... “Why are you so angry all the time?” I said, “What are you talking about? When have I EVER been angry?” He said, “Well, I see you walking across the compound and you look so pissed!” What the hell! I said,” I am thinking! I have a project to work on, issues to resolve and I'm thinking! This is how I look when I am thinking!” I guess I looked 'scary.'

Anyway, a couple of months later another guy said pretty much the same thing to me! And a few weeks later... another one! Well, there's a really old saying that I thought about.... If one person says to you... “Hey, in just the right light, your face looks just like a horse!”.. you laugh it off and forget about it. If a second person says that you might want to smack the s*&% out of him and then give it a little bit of thought! But, if a third person says it.... It might just be time to buy a saddle!!! It's actually pretty wise.

So I thought about it and came up with a solution. Every time I met up with one of the guys I would immediately call him a cute or funny name. Hey there Snickerdoodle or Nutterbut or Smorgasbord or whatever. Just something to put him at ease and let him know I wasn't about to eat him alive and it put him at ease. It worked GREAT! They quickly chilled out!

Now I'm getting pretty old and I rent out rooms in my house and I still do that to put my tenants at ease. Hey Chimichanga, Hey Rutabaga! It still works and it solves another problem. Tenants come and go a lot. How am I supposed to remember all their names? IT WORKS!  They're chill. And there's a chance that I will get dementia before too long because that happens a lot to old people but it might just take them awhile to figure this out because of my odd behavior! So, I figure I'm buying myself some time, just in case.

But I have begun to put some thoughts into the end times. Like, if I DO get dementia and I DO end up in a home and what if I revert to my old construction days? Saying things I heard a lot along the way....  some good, some bad and some even worse.... Will I start saying things like... “Hey Numbnuts, where the hell did you put my bedpan?” Or “Hey, Shit for Brains, WHERE'S MY LUNCH!!??”  

Just can't plan for everything!

I once had a lover that called me her beautiful monster.

I don't have a romantic bone in my body, but I have always been amused by the different terms of endearment in different cultures. In the US, pumpkin is a term of endearment. My understanding is that mon petit chou is a French term of endearment, forgive me for spelling mistakes, which I understand translates as my little cabbage. Both seem odd as they are vegetables. In our family, we tend to have family only nicknames. Other than that, I call my loved ones, baby or sweetheart.