Terms of Endearment

I was editing a piece this afternoon and needed to come up with a better word for "a term of endearment." We pulled out the old hard copy edition of Roget's International Thesaurus (which is worlds better than all these online versions) and found:

pet name
affectionate name
diminutive

I've also heard it called a "lovey," but I don't know if that came from Gilligan's Island where Thurston Howell the Third calls his wife Lovey.

A colleague wrote back in reply to my request for examples: "I thought a pet name was more specific: like calling a plain but lovable husband “Rock” [as in Hudson] or a plain but lovable wife “My Own Bardot."

Don't you love office correspondence like this?

My mom's youngest sister never could pronounce my mom's name, Sharon, and came out with "Zim" whenever she tried. The name stuck and my mom's pet name among her sisters is still Zim. She even signs her paintings with that monicker.

There's "Big Papi" (David Ortiz) out in Boston and "Sweetness" (Walter Payton) in Chicago. Bill Clinton was called "Bubba" growing up and Jimmy Carter often heard "The Grin."

In TV Land, there was "Pepper" for Angie Dickinson's cop character, "Puddin' Head" for Colonel Potter on MASH, and even--did you know this; it's kinda creepy?--"Penis Von Lesbian," the tongue-in-cheek nickname of actor Dick Van Dyke given to him by fellow actors Mary Tyler Moore, Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie etc. while filming the THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. The name, apparently, was a play on words with the actor's own name "Dick" (Penis) "Van" (Von) "Dyke."

Today I also shared e-mails with some women friends about the term "the girls," made popular by the "What Not to Wear" duo, as in "we gotta get you a good bra to keep those girls up." One of my friends wrote to remind us of Kramer's (Seinfeld) diminutive for his testicles: "My boys."

Speaking of my boy, once, when I answered the phone at my husky husband's (then-boyfriend's) house, one of his Greek friends called asking for Ken. My husband has the same first name as his father had but they're not junior and senior. I asked, "Big Ken or Little Ken?" His friend George said, "Oh yes, Big Ken. He is very big."

And when we lived on the East Side of St. Paul, my hubbie would go down to the Earl St. rec center to play ice hockey with the kids in the neighborhood. He always wore a bright green hooded sweatshirt with the lettering "Irish Rebels" on the front, and when I'd get home from work in the evening, all the rough-and-tumble East Side boys would be knocking at the door asking if "the Big Green Guy" could come out and play.

My husband likes to use diminutives all the time at our house. He calls my son "His Lordship," especially when my son says things like, "Can I expect dinner after practice?" He calls me "Sweet Sugar" or "Baby Cakes" or anything else he can get away with before I slug him. We've both taken to calling our strident and politically active college daughter, "the Righteous One."

Who you calling out today, lovey? Any special pet names you want to share with us?