Hot, Holy & Humorous

Is He Sweetheart? Stud Muffin? Romantic Nicknames

It’s fairly common for husbands and wives to choose cutesy or sexy monikers for one another.  Looking up romantic nicknames online, I found everything from Angel Face to Yummy Pants (whose wife apparently hollers this when he walks through the door after work!).

For my own self, I have been known to get really creative and call my hubby — wait for it — “Love.”  Yep, that’s it.  Not exactly earth-shattering, eh?  However, it does sound better when I utter it with my British Beatles accent!

A friend recently informed me that she regularly calls her husband “Superman.”  I thought, Now there’s a happy hubby.  What guy wouldn’t like to be regularly reminded that he’s your ultimate hero!  Presumably, this guy looks good in a pair of tights and a cape too, but I refrained from asking about any accompanying role play in their bedroom.  That would be TMI.

Then I considered the opposite end:  You know, those couples who call each other Mama and Daddy — even when the children are not around or have grown up and moved out!  What is that about?  At the very least, add “Hot” in front of “Mama” and “Big” in front of “Daddy”!  Spice it up, baby!

So then I opened up my go-to book on all-things-sexy in the Bible:  Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon.  Sure enough, there they are!  The hubby refers to his lovely wife as My Bride (kallah) and Darling (ra’yah) several times over.  And the wife calls her husband Lover, or Beloved, (dowd) throughout — which, in my rudimentary biblical Hebrew research, I discovered could also be translated “love.”  (Whew! My boring choice looks better now.)

Of course, sappy pet names can go too far and make you look like romantic idiots if used in front of others.  Note Jerry Seinfeld’s “Schmoopy” girlfriend (or is it “Shmoopy”? I couldn’t figure that out).  If you haven’t seen it, here’s a peek that will make your brow furrow and your stomach cringe:

So when should you throw out a pet name for your honey?  How do you choose an appropriate one?

First of all, if you’re going all out with something more creative than Sweetheart or Dear, you might want to make it private.  Your kids don’t want you walking through the house summoning their father with, “Hey, Big Sausage Man!”  And your parents do not need to overhear hubby referring to you as “Tasty Treats” over the Thanksgiving meal.

Secondly, choose something that’s meaningful for the two of you.  If he took you to McDonald’s on your first date, maybe “Big Mac” is an appropriate lovey-dovey name.  (Although I really have to question his cheapskate attitude toward your courtship.)  More meaningful, though, are those names which encompass how you feel about the person.  Do you feel she is an undeserved blessing from above?  Then maybe she’s your Angel.  Do you think he’s unbelievably romantic?  Maybe he’s your Cyrano or Casanova.  Are her kisses absolutely delicious?  Maybe she’s Honey Lips.  Do you love the way his beard tickles against your cheek when he kisses you?  Maybe he’s Furry Face.

As you can tell, I’m probably not very good at this.  But I do defend calling my husband “Love”!  It encompasses how I feel about him.  As I have said before, no one is more surprised by the length of my monogamous relationship with my honey than I am.  He really is the one true love I’ve had in my life — the one that has lasted in spite of the ups and downs, twists and turns of life.  Wait!  That gives me an idea!  Maybe he’s my “Roller Coaster of Love”!  Wasn’t that a song?

Never mind.  Back to the drawing board.  What have you got?  What romantic nicknames do you use?  What do you think of pet names for your sweetheart in general?  Do they add to your sense of connection?  Do they liven up your sex life?

“My lover spoke and said to me, ‘Arise my darling,

my beautiful one, and come with me.'”

 Song of Songs 2:10

14 thoughts on “Is He Sweetheart? Stud Muffin? Romantic Nicknames”

  1. Great post! I don’t have a pet name for my husband but I really really want to call him one but every time I do, I feel sooo stupid. Awkward even. My husband calls me honeybun and I try calling him sweetheart but it doesn’t seem masculine enough to me. however, I do like love and superman I may have to test them out.

  2. We call each other “sweetie”, “darling” and “love”.
    But I’ve also been known to call my husband “my sherpa”, because he likes to carry my bags around when we are out 🙂

  3. We use a LOT of different pet names. The main ones are Mr. Man and Miss Lady. I’m really not sure why… I guess the first time we used them they caught. We also use “dear” a lot in conversation.

  4. We tend to call each other whatever comes to mind at the time: Baby, Sweetie, Dear, Hon, Honey, even Love 🙂 But we have also been known to call each other Mama and Daddy, even when the kids aren’t around, and I don’t think calling each other that diminishes the nature or even spice in our relationship in any way. I think the fact that my husband is such a wonderful dad is one of his most sexy qualities, and his role as my girls’ daddy is as much a part of who he is to me as it is a part of who he is to them. When I call him Daddy, it is a term of love and admiration and respect, and I feel the same way when he calls me Mama. When my oldest girls were born, I was so happy to be their Mama, and I loved to be called that, and I still do. At first I loved hearing him call me Mama just for the novelty of it and because I was so happy to have that new role, but now it has grown beyond that. I know that when my husband calls me Mama, he is thinking that I am a good mother to his children, and that he loves, respects, and appreciates me for the role I play in their lives as well as in his. When we use those terms for each other, it reminds both of us of how much we love each other and how grateful we are to be working together to raise the children with whom God has blessed us. And my husband will even sometimes take the opportunity to suggest that we “practice” for the next time we are ready to become a Mama and Daddy again. 🙂

  5. Hey Mrs. HotHolyHumrous! I love this post.

    I agree with you about couples who call each other “mama” and “dad” even long after the kids are grown (I actually think it’s a little weird even when the kids are young… when done on a regular basis… like the husband is regularly calling his wife “mama”). I even know an older couple who doesn’t even have kids and they still use the “mom” and “pop” reference. Awkward.

    My husband has a funny name for me that is totally a term of endearment. Once when we were dating, I was wearing some docker pants and I said, “These pants are baggy. Do these pants look baggy on me?!” I was very emphatic about it. He just laughed. So, every now and then, he’ll say to me, “Hey Baggy, how’s it going?” Fun little inside joke for us both.

    As for what I call him? Well, I think in the grips of passion, I say “Oh God” a lot. Hopefully he doesn’t think it’s a direct salutation. I mean he’s good and all, but wouldn’t want him thinking too lofty of himself. 🙂 (I gotta work that into a post on my site, don’t I?!)

  6. Mine calls me Pookie and I used to think it was relatively original. However, my kids got a little older and started watching Garfield. It was then I found out that Pookie was the name of Garfield’s teddy bear. So, while it is a term of endearment, I still see that fat cat and his teddy bear every once in a while…

  7. @Heather, for a minute, I thought you were my wife (until you mentioned your kids – of which I don’t have any yet)! My wife, Heather, and I call each other Pookie. We love Garfield and it just stuck one day. Been calling each other that for years now. lol

    @J: I’d love to send you a private message via Twitter. Follow me at @preengaged.

  8. My Lovely husband is “Lovely” more often than anything else and he signs off on the phone with “‘Bye, Darlin.” He’s from the south so it fits in well. On occasion, he uses Mama or Mrs. Edens – which are ways of showing respect for me and my position in our house.

    I’ll be adding your blog link to my own blog – sex is a subject that needs more Christian humor infused into it! My blog is at http://tillieisms.blogspot.com -Hope to see you!

  9. A year or so ago I reread the Little House on the Prairie book that takes place after Laura gets married. I had forgotten that she referred to her husband as Manly, but I really liked that idea, so sometimes I call my hubby Manly or amp it up to Studly. 🙂

  10. My husband and I pretty much call each other “Baby.” Not very creative, I know. He sometimes calls me “Wife” or “Wifey” and I call him “Husband” (we are still somewhat of newlyweds, so the novelty hasn’t completely worn off)! We do call each other “Momma” and “Daddy” or variations of them in front of our baby, and personally I like it when he calls me all of those things. As one of the other comments said, I feel like it shows respect for my position in the household. I love being a wife and a mom and that is so much a part of who I am.. plus, it’s easily interpreted as “Hot Mama” and “Big Daddy” and we do say those when we call each other “mama” and “daddy” in private. However, I think my very favorite thing to call my husband is when I call him stuff in Spanish. It just sounds so sexy, no matter what I say to him.. I can call him husband, daddy, big daddy, big .. other stuff.., whatever I want and it just sounds flat out hot.

  11. Katie M – We called each other Mom and Dad in front of our kids so they would learn the proper names. But alone…not really. As for your Spanish nicknames, that’s muy caliente! Thanks for stopping by.

  12. We aren’t into names all that much, though I have recently started calling him “Honey”. He said, “Hey, I have a new name!” lol Mostly it’s “Husband” or “Wife”, but my favorite is when he calls me “Woman.” I know that would be offensive to some, but to me it’s like Genesis 2:23 when Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Hearing him say that makes me feel loved and special, I am his possession (in a good way) because I was made FOR him. <3

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