Obviously your pets have names, but chances are that’s not what you always call them.
We have Big Cat and Little Cat. Sometimes we call big cat, “butterball.” Little cat can be, “baby kitty.” We may occasionally say “snuggly wuzzikin,” or “kittikens.” We have some nicknames based on their real names as well.
#2 : Mine is baby. fuzz-face. goober. fuzzball. gooberkitty. sweetie. [name]-baby. kit-kit.
Children are “snuggle-bun” and “snuggers” and “baby” and “precious” and “honey.” Also “little/big guy/girl” as appropriate for age and expressed gender. Occasionally a “cutie-patootie” will sneak in.
What do you call your pets (or children)? If you have/had neither pets nor children, what were you called growing up?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
August 21, 2013 at 1:52 am
Infants–“pumpkin,” “baby” and mushy stuff made up in the moment, but mostly by their given names.
dog–I gave my seven-year-old son the privilege of naming his puppy. So, the dog was called “Puppy” for 15 years.
cat–no child could agree, so it was “Cat.”
second dog two years after the first–No one could come up with a name. So, I declared his name was Rudolph. It was a sweet little short puppy, all fuzzy with huge feet. My husband and children declared Rudolph was a horrid name for a tiny puppy even as I was calling him Rudy. The name soon fit. Rudy grew up to be a pointer who had to find a country home. I named him Rudolph because he wandered up during Christmas time.
My hens names now–“Thelma” and “Louise,” “Lucy” and “Ethel,” “Pepper” and then “Fancy.” The latest hen is “Patsy Cline.” Only Thelma and Patsy Cline have survived raccoons and illness. Yes, I call her the full name. Collectively, I call them “pretty girls.”
August 21, 2013 at 6:45 am
I call my kids my little chickens!
August 21, 2013 at 10:42 am
I had a mink tunnel into the coop last week and nearly kill my rooster. A mink!! I never would have guessed there were mink living in the city!
August 21, 2013 at 4:16 am
My mon calls her favorite hen choo choo. It follows her around the yard when she is in the garden.
August 21, 2013 at 4:46 am
PhysioCatte is Mr. Dude, Dudeskis, or Motherf*cker.
August 21, 2013 at 6:45 am
Ok. Those are awesome.
Cats- officially “named” Mark and Miles (ala Vorkosigan, cause they look like clones except body weight), aka “King” and “Horacio” (what the 4 year old wanted to name them; Dad was Not On Board for reasons I can’t fathom); they are sometimes called fatty and skinny; Mark is fluffy, fluffikins, beast hunter, prettykitty, puppy, chubby, and chubster and Miles is sometimes snugglekitten
Kid- kidlet, Roo (that was the first one), Bud/buddy, little goof, goofball, baby, honey, sweetie, sweetie-petite-y,
August 21, 2013 at 6:49 am
Vorkosigan cats! I love it!
August 21, 2013 at 5:34 am
I lean towards “cat” and “devil cat” and sometimes “suicide cat” or “murder cat” due to one cat’s preferred lurking place on the step immediately below the top step.
I have kinder terms of endearment for children, I promise.
August 21, 2013 at 6:32 am
No kids myself, but I call the toddler twins I babysit for my little bubbies. I also have cute nicknames based on their names.
My cat gets called sweet pea when I am feeling kind or she is upset. (side note: sometimes I call my husband sweet pea too.) When she’s being a butt, I call her a little porker/piker. All our other names for her are just derivations of her own name — she’s Lucy, so she gets called Lucifer, luciferase, Lucy Lou, etc. Our niece and nephew call her little Lucy whenever they talk about her, despite the fact that she’s neither little nor big (more firmly medium cat sized). Oh, and we call her Lucycat a lot too.
August 21, 2013 at 6:50 am
(Canines)
Names frequently heard: T, Default dog, Delta Dog, Goobie, Goobie Girl, Little Barbarian, Fredlins, Fuzzbutt
August 21, 2013 at 6:52 am
Collectively, Glendower and Basement Cat are the Bobcats (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/bobcats_monday) or the Minions of Darkness, shortened to Minions.
August 21, 2013 at 10:25 am
Love it!
August 21, 2013 at 8:07 am
Many of our cats’ nicknames are based on their actual names. But we also use some of #2’s: furball and furhead and fuzzface and fuzzbutt and sweetie and dummy and beautiful and handsome and waddlepuss and snugglepuss and hunkerpuss. If I’m irritated, sometimes I’ll just address one as “CAT.”
As a child, I was called sweetie and [my name]+kins. And sometimes wombat.
August 21, 2013 at 8:33 am
wombat?
August 21, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Yep. That’s my dad. I still think it’s kinda awesome.
August 21, 2013 at 8:08 am
Two cats here:
Isaac – gets called Isaacness, sweetness, ness-ness, Isaacus-Newtonus, and less endearing names like boob and butthead when he’s being annoying.
Isabella – Izzie, Izzie-pants, pants, pantelons, Isabella-wella, little girl
We called our son pumpkin head when he was first born because he was very orange (jaundice) and it was around Halloween. Our longstanding nickname for him is “first name”-potamus, and various related themes (potamus, potamoose, pot, etc.). He’s also little man and buddy/bud.
August 21, 2013 at 8:21 am
The kid is, well, any number of things including Pumpkin Pie and Schnoofie Boo. The dogs are poochie gaboochies. Or is that poochies gaboochie? I always get my plurals mixed up in nickname-ish. I tend to call both of the horses I am riding regularly “big boy” or “big man” because they are (I also tell one of them he’s a truck, or a boat). Ironically this leaves the 16.2 hh TB I’m maybe about to start riding (if I can *just* figure out how to squeeze him into my schedule) as “little fella.”
August 21, 2013 at 10:27 am
Oh yeah! I call the horse Big Guy. Sometimes goofball, or Mr. Man. I call all the mares pretty lady.
August 21, 2013 at 8:44 am
Cat – fuzzy butt, walnut (for the size of his brain), and these occasionally get combined into fuzzy nut. There’s also doofus and killer depending on what kind of mood he is in.
August 21, 2013 at 8:54 am
Kid = Peanut, The Guy, and Scotzilla. We called him Sniglar (like the Ikea baby furniture) in utero.
August 21, 2013 at 8:56 am
No pets or children. I call my youngest niece “Alexandra” like my sister requests (not “Lexi-poo,” my current favorite nickname), but she calles her “Munchkin.”
I call my colleagues in the other colleges who come to me with their tricky questions my “chickadees.” When talking to them directly or talking about specific ones, though, I call them by their names. (I don’t work with them anymore–though one just asked me a question last week anyway–but I still call them my chickadees.)
My dad called me “Monkey Face” and “Debbie Spaghetti” and my brother was “Chipmunk.” And he calls all of us “My best kid … who’s with me.”
August 21, 2013 at 10:19 am
My dog’s name is Hannah and I call her that when I want her to come to me. When I’m petting her or snuggling with her, I refer to her as “baby dog” or “honey dog” a lot. She is the ultimate comfort dog; anytime I’m upset she comes to me and leans into me to give me the comfort of her presence. :-)
The hens don’t all have names, and I usually just call them “the hens.” The rooster is officially named Rory after the neighbor who found him in the woods, but I usually just call him “Roo” or “Little Roo.” I will at times refer to the hens as his “ladies.”
August 21, 2013 at 10:44 am
Our cat’s given name is short but our nickname for him is Captain Fuzzy Paws of the Space Patrol.
August 21, 2013 at 11:10 am
The Kid I call all kinds of things, including boo, sweetness, dumpling, and babycakes (which she hates) and (when she’s in BIG trouble) her full name, in ALL CAPS.
The cats — one is named Jasper, so she gets called Jazz and Jazz-ma-tazz, and Jazzle-cat and Jazzley-bear. The other cat, Junti, is either Baby-Kitty or Killer. (She is a ferocious hunter, even at five months old. So you can often hear us saying things like “Where’s that little killer got to?”)
August 21, 2013 at 11:38 am
The cat, Simone, is usually “princess,” “smunch” when I’m feeling especially affectionate toward her, “horrible creature” when I’m pretending not to like her.
August 22, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Oh yeah, I forgot about “Horrible Beast” when he has, e.g., coughed up a hairball on the rug.
August 21, 2013 at 12:23 pm
I tend toward some combination of repeated sounds: moo-moo, boo-boo, cutie booty, Marcus Marcus. That, or just random affectations: happy puppy, puppy face, my baby.
But when they’re doing something naughty, it’s gendered formalities: sir, ma’am.
August 21, 2013 at 12:26 pm
Cat when children aren’t around: Evil b!tch
Cat when children are around: Evil kitty or Bad Kitty or Meanie
Children: Things 1, 2, and 3
August 21, 2013 at 1:05 pm
I have a pukes-a-lot and a yowls-a-lot. When the one cat isn’t inhaling his food and throwing it up later it’s Ratchet, and when the other cat isn’t yowling in the middle of the night, it’s Shadow.
August 21, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Girl kid: snuggle-buggle, spoon, sweetie-pie
Boy kid: buddy, schmoo, sweetie-pie
Cat: Miss Fluffy Pants, Fluffums, Fluffy Mamba (because she bites)
Dog: Piggy-piggy (cuz he grunts), Dotche (I’m not sure how to spell it: D, long o, “tch”)
August 21, 2013 at 2:26 pm
All three kids (both genders) get called buddy and sweetie. Dog also gets called sweetie or sweetie-dog or little dog.
Oldest boy gets called sweet pea. Younger boy gets called punkin. Baby girl gets called piglet because she’s very fat and pink, but I’m sure she’s not going to like that much as she gets older so I need to come up with a new one for her.
August 21, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Dog: Peepie, P, sweet P, peep-a-lay, pdonk-a-lay, Peeps
When she does something dumb we call her Donkey.
When she does something bad we say that Beepie did it.
August 21, 2013 at 4:31 pm
We are loving these!
August 21, 2013 at 7:23 pm
Our girls have no nicknames. That really weirds some people out who believe that their given names are too long and formal. I frequently call either daughter “pumpkin” or “sweetheart” or “little girl” (the last is a real laugh with Eldest since she towers over me by a good five inches).
I’ll sometimes double up our Sheltie’s name so she’s Goldie-Moldie and I’m already starting to add on to Xena the Rottweiler (so she’s becoming Xena-Bena). Generically, either might be called pup-pup or doggie-whumple.
I’d say our cats were too dignified for silly names but that would be a lie. You can’t really shorten Odo but we frequently call him “Podo” which mashes up “Poor Odo” because he feels hard done by so much of the time. And “Silly Sisu” just comes naturally, doesn’t it?, especially when she’s flopped over on her back with paws flailing languidly as she sleeps.
August 22, 2013 at 10:06 pm
awwwww
August 22, 2013 at 5:37 am
I call both of my girls “babe” all the time….I have no idea why. I usually call my dog “shut up” or “get the hell away from me.” My canine coworker is on my nerves.
August 22, 2013 at 6:27 am
I have two boys, and after my second was born, I started calling them The Heir and the Spare because I thought it was so funny that they used to called William & Harry that.
August 22, 2013 at 8:08 am
Black cat (male) gets called by his name, “You’re annoying” (that’s what I’ve been calling him this morning), baby boy, buddy, pretty (because when I call girl cat pretty he gets chatty as if to say he can be pretty too), and a slew of not nice things when he’s bad and keeping me up for a few hours at night. Calico girl cat is baby girl, grumpy guts (she can be extra grumpy sometimes), beautiful girl, pretty girl, and mommy’s favorite. That last one never works, as she loves her daddy more than me. When we get home we’ll both say “where’s our babies?” Mind you they are like 10 and 11 and not babies but of well.
Baby on the way will probably be called Little One, or first letter of real name which I’ve already used when texting husband, because it just seems to fit. When we were little Dad called me “babe” but I don’t see me using that. I can’t remember mom every using a pet name for us. Mom chose our names because they can’t really be shortened to nicknames. I’ve done the same. A few years ago I learned that MIL used to call one SIL “dumpy” when she was a kid…it started out as “dumpling” and then got shortened.
August 22, 2013 at 9:15 am
Kids are called “bougie” or “bougie-boo” or “bougety-boo” or some variation on that nonsense I made up. When my oldest was itty bitty I called him “yum yum” for some reason and that stuck for a while, but has fallen out of favor. They are also “little buddy”, “little guy” , their first initials, their first initials-dog (i.e. A-dog, or Z-dog) or some variation on their names. The dog has many hilarious variations on her name. Or, when we’re annoyed “that dog”.
I love this topic, people are much more open than they were in “what do you call your partner”, not surprisingly.
August 22, 2013 at 9:58 am
Our dog Emerson probably has the most nicknames of anyone in the house. We call him E, Em, Buddy, Bud, Bubba, Boobah, Fuzz-butt, Pup, Boy, and of course Emerson.
Our cat Sir Oliver doesn’t usually respond to nicknames so he is called Sir Oliver, or if he is being naughty, then “CAT!!”, which usually works as well but only if spoken in all caps with at least two exclamation points.
The kids are called by their full first names, or sweetie, sweets, pumpkin, honey, or kiddo. Sometimes my son is also called Bud. This occasionally confuses the dog.
August 22, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Dogs – the princess, her heiness, dum dum, and mr. fluffy butt.
August 23, 2013 at 11:01 am
My two cats have long, proper names but are usually called by their full “first” names. Which I do not post on the Internet for the same reason I wouldn’t post my kids’ if I had any.
An all-encompassing nickname is “shmoo.” The black cat is often called Pesty Puss, Cuteness O’Catness, or slinky-minky. The ragdoll is often called fuzzy-wuzzy, furry purry, hairy kari, fluffypants, or hunkahunka purrin’ fuzz (that’s his theme song actually. The other one’s theme song is Lucrezia MacEvil).
When they are being adorable, they are Precious Kittens; when they are being pains in the ass they are Beastly Beasts. They both like to be talked to. :-)
August 23, 2013 at 3:46 pm
The children are called “pussycat,” or “kitten,” and the cats are called (as appropriate) “baby boy” or “baby girl,” or “boycat” or “girlcat.”
Yet no one has yet been too apparently confused about their species. We hope.