AS PART OF TheJournal.ie’s weekly Family Magazine, we wanted to create a space for parents to share their views. A place where mums and dads could share their experiences, lessons learned, and even mistakes along the way.
From classics like ‘honey’ and ‘pet’ to more creative monikers like ‘boo bear’ and ‘Lord Squidgypants’, most parents out there have some sort of nickname for their little ones. Some use them more often than others, of course, and some veto them altogether.
This week we asked our panel which nicknames and terms of endearment have stuck down through the years.
What pet names do you use for your kids?
Here’s what they had to say…
Charlie Bear, Charlie Zim, Cha Cha…: Charlie was ‘Charlie Bear’ for at least the first six months after he was born. I recently started calling him ‘Cha Cha’ but my husband has vetoed it! His middle name is Zim, same as mine, so some family call him Charlie Zim, too. I would love him to be a little ‘Chuckie’ but not sure it’s going to suit…
- Kait Quinn
Meemaa, because she can’t say her own name yet: We call our one-year-old “messer” but I don’t think it’d be fair to call that a pet name. The closest thing would be Meemaa, which is what she calls herself, as she can’t pronounce Clíodhna yet!
- Ríona Flood
Lord Squidgypants, complete with theme tune: We use a shortened version of our son’s name all the time and it would be weird to use his full name. As for pet names, Puddin’ Bear gets a lot of use, and he’s also called Lord Squidgypants in our house, which he finds hilarious! We have a song about it and he dances around when we sing it.
- Olly Keegan
Bo, thanks to a toddler mishap: My eldest Brian is 22, but we call him Bo and very rarely use his proper name which highly embarrasses him. It started a couple of years back when Ellie, three, was learning to talk. She couldn’t say his name properly and her version has stuck!
- Denise Cumiskey
Little Bear, Little Mouse and Little Frog: Polish language can be very creative so not only do I use around five different “soft” versions of Timothy’s name, I also call him misiek (little teddy bear), myszka (little mouse) and żabek (a baby male frog… because he hops a lot!)
- Marta Lisiecka
Chickpea, as per our first scan: Our eldest was known as Chickpea before she was born, because that’s what she looked like on one of her pregnancy scans. The others have lots of pet names between them including Angel, Chuck, Pixie, Bru and Buster!
- Ross Boxshall
Chicken gets a lot of use: We didn’t really have pet names for our sons, but the odd time we’d call them ‘chicken’ when they were younger. Our daughter gets called ‘chicken’ more often, we interchange it with her name… It’s a weird one when you think of what a chicken looks like… but I can’t remember how it came about!
- Alan Dooley
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