I was at the passport office the other day with my daughter waiting in line without much to do (the 5-year-old had pulled ranks on me and highjacked the Iphone) and I started thinking about the affectionate names the French had for kids. The lady behind the counter had just addressed little Coco as la puce literally translated as ‘the flea’. A while later I overheard a mom talking to her daughter and calling her mon choux: ‘my cabbage’.
True, said in French puce and choux sound cute, translated into English — not so cute. I had to laugh because I have been using these terms all this time and never thought about what they really meant! Do you have similar affectionate names in your language?
-Emilie
Comments (21)
what I find funny as well is how these little nicknames come up…
we call our daughter choupinette… and it was just there one day, like…so normal…never really used that word before (for what:) )…
sometimes I call her HASE which is German and means rabbit in English…
Guess people would look a bit strange if I would say… C’mon my little rabbit… haha
Ha! You are right. We call our younger son chou chou all of the time and I rarely think about the fact that this is essentially cabbage cabbage. His name is Felix and Fifi (offered originally by my brother) has also slipped into the lexicon, even though I am sure he will cringe later on.
in Italy we often use ‘topolino’ meaning little mouse, like “let’s go my ‘topolino'”.
My american mother called me “baby monster” all the time. I grew up in Italy and never dared translate to my friends what she was saying!
Hi Emilie, mon choux is not about cabbage but Choux for Choux a la creme!!! so it is about pastry/sweet a little bit swetter than you think 🙂 j’ai bien rigole en lisant ton article 🙂
We call Ava ‘cookie’ but that’s not weird! In Dutch, ‘poopy’ is a common name to call your loved one. When we’re in France, old ladies come up to Ava and call her ‘Petite puce’ all the time, so cute I find!
I call my children ‘cucurucho’ (or cucurucha, for my daughter), which is Spanish for cone – as in ice cream cone. Also, ‘piojito’ (or ‘piojita’), which means little louse, as in head lice.
Well… I call my kids ‘pumpkin’ which i suppose is slightly weird (kind of along the cabbage lines…). Or ‘sweet pea’ which again is another vegetable. It is funny when you stop to think about these little names you call your kids!
I love all these names! My boy is PICKLE and it’s so fixed he even introduces himself as Pickle. The one in our family is poppet & sweet pea too x
I call my little one “chou a la creme” which means “cream puff”, “bouchon” which means “cork” or “roudoudou” – a hard caramel cast in a little plastic shell…
The other one I quite like in french is my “fleur biche”which translates to my “flower fawn” which makes no sense in any language, but does sound sweet!
In Germany, it’ s normal to call babies Spatz (sparrow), Mausi (mouse), we also Call our daughter Pups (fart).Mh.
We visited Italy when my little girl was one, and she was endearingly called “cipollina” (little onion) by an elderly lady. And also “patatina” (little potato?!) by another. Again, vegetables!
I think that children can be called pretty much any type of food and it’s cute… but call an adult “pudding-pop” and there might be an issue. My four kids are Goose, Addie-girly-girl, Troy-boy and Meemers. Not really food related, but cute for them. 🙂
these are all so cute! I love Penny’s word: ‘pups’ that’s hilarious.
I was recently visiting my sister in Amman Jordan. She has a 3 month old and all the Jordanians, especially the men would call her ‘Habibi’ which means my love/my beloved. it was so darling that we started calling her that.
also I grew up with my father calling me ‘Sis’ and now that’s what I call my daughter.
Your posting made me laugh. When I first heard these names, I thought they were weird, but now really like them. I call my daughter “My pumpkin or my little monkey”. She has gotten smart and at a bit less than 2 1/2 years old, she called me big monkey!
Hi Emilie,
I’d love to know how to pronounce la puce, my father used to call me Corinne the flea when I was growing up and I’d love to be able to follow that on to my daughter but not in english, as I think people might find me a tad odd 🙂
One i love as well, is “poulette” which is Sweet Hen? I prefer ma poulette!
Corinne, can you say “chateau petrus” the “uce” the puce is the same, don’t say the “uce” the same way yu say bus in english, not sure how clear I am on that one!
I think ‘La puce’ is pronouced the same as English word : puce (a pinkish colour)
Corinne, I have been thinking about how to describe how puce is pronounced and it is actually really hard to do. It is something like: püs… does that help?
Oh I love this subject… My children have beautiful names but we call them “Titchi” and “Chini” – and everyone calls them those names. “Titchi” came from the German word “quietschi”, which means squeaky and because he was only 1 at the time he couldn’t say it so called himself ‘titchi’ and it stuck. Chini, came from the biscuit Cantuccini – I called my daughter Lio-ccini and again the Chini bit stuck. For a long time though my son was know as Knoepfchen or Knoepf for short – which is little button in German – it was the nickname we gave him when he was a bump in my stomach and it stayed with him until he was about 2. I know people who have actually used the ‘womb’ nick-names in their child’s Christened name – A girl who has ‘Bean’ as her middle name and another who has ‘Pip’ – I really love them both! My other favourite nick-names for our kids: Raspberry McFeathers and Curly von Blitz are our children’s detective alter-egos and I also call them both pudding (one being a chocolate one with a chocolate goey centre and the other being a sponge one with strawberries and cream on top) – v. silly!