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Quite simply, when a character gives another character a cute or endearing nickname because the two are either as close as True Companions, or the namer is interested romantically in the namee. The nickname may not be well-received by the one being named, as they find it insulting or embarrassing, but in the mind of the name-giver it's sweet and/or thoughtful.
In short, it's a pet name. Expect The Nicknamer to dole these out a lot.
Sub Trope of In-Series Nickname.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- Batman: Harley Quinn calls The Joker "Mistah J" and "Puddin'."
- In a fanfiction about the Batfamily, Jason calls Damian "baby bird" and "little bird". He has called Dick "Dickie Bird" in canon.
- In a fit of karma, Jason's Red Hood and the Outlaws co-star, Roy Harper, calls him "Jaybird."
- In a possibly darker sense of this, its common for Joker to call Batman "Batsy". Given who the Joker is, Batman likely doesn't enjoy being called it.
- Babara Gordon, AKA Batgirl/Oracle, tends to get called either "Babs" or "Barb" by the Robins, especially Tim, Dick, and Steph.
- X-Men: Colossus often calls Katherine "Kitty" Pryde "Katya". When he broke off their teen romance after the Secret Wars, he made a point of calling her "Kitty". Later when they resumed their romance during Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, he resumed calling her "Katya".
- In her early days in the X-Men, when she still was a young teenager, Kitty had a few such nicknames, for instance Storm called her "Kitten", Nightcrawler "Kätzchen" ('Kitten' in German), Wolverine "Pun'kin", or sometimes "Half-Pint".
- Wolverine liked to call his good friend Nightcrawler "Elf" in a slightly ironic fashion. Kitty Pryde preferred the more cutesy "Fuzzy-Elf".
- Wolverine, "Wolvie" to many of his friends, is also known for addressing Charles Xavier as "Charley" and "Chuck" (to the latter's annoyance) Jean Grey as "Jeannie" or "Red", though he's not he only one to use that, and Cyclops as "Cyke", depending on his current mood and opinion of him.
- New Gods: The Happily Married Scott Free and Big Barda do this a lot, with Barda's primary nickname for Scott being that he is her "Little Man". Scott actually accepts this nickname whole-heartedly, and even refers to himself as such when talking with her sometimes, especially whenever they're being lovey-dovey.
- Superman: Lois Lane has been known to call Clark Kent "Smallville", initially as a form of derision, later as a term of endearment.
- Mary Jane's use of "Tiger" to refer to Peter is somewhere between this and Verbal Tic. On the one hand, she has used it to refer to other guys in the past and it was part of her early Totally Radical persona. On the other, it becomes associated with Peter exclusively pretty quickly and only she is allowed to call him that.
- In the 1970s she also sometimes called him "Brown-Eyes".
- Similar to MJ and Peter, Mockingbird often calls her former husband Hawkeye by the name 'Sport' when the two are currently together, which originally started off as a general term of endearment for any guy she was working with. Clint, meanwhile, calls her Birdie, as a shortened form of her name.
- Paperinik refers to Xadhoom as "Occhibelli"("Beauty Eyes"). Please note she is a vengeful space godness Genius Bruiser.He gets away with this by being her Only Friend.
Literature
- Seregil of the Nightrunner series begins calling Alec 'Tali' which means 'beloved.' Guess what happens next...
- In V. C. Andrews' Orphans series, the dainty and shy Janet is called "Butterfly" by her orphan friends. Similarly, in the Wildflowers series, the meek and timid Cathy is called "Cat" by her OWP (Orphans With Parents) friends.
- In the Casteel series, Heaven's angelically beautiful and saintly mother Leigh was called "Angel" by Luke after he heard her call her doll that and said that the nickname fit her better. Heaven herself is called "Heavenly" by her brother Tom who's super-close to her (but not romantically interested in her, shockingly enough).
- Nicknames are common in L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series. Gilbert calls Anne "Anne-girl" after their marriage (after initially calling her Carrots...he didn't make that mistake again!). Anne, in turn, is the only one in the book series to call him "Gil".
- Their youngest daughter Rilla is called "Spider" by her older brother Jem, in reference to her gangly limbs at the start of Rilla of Ingleside. Her brother Walter also takes to calling her Rilla-my-Rilla, a play on her name (she is named after Marilla, though this is actually her middle name). Her childhood friend/crush Kenneth Ford adopts this same nickname, eventually using it to propose ("Is it Rilla-my-Rilla?").
- Jem is always called "Little Jem" by the family's hired help, Susan, which he hates. Susan also calls Jem's youngest brother Shirley her "Little Brown Boy", owing to his dark skin, brown hair, and brown eyes.
- In Animorphs, Marco would jokingly refer to Rachel, his (Dark) Action Girl teammate, as "Xena: Warrior Princess." Their Token Non Human teammate is also known as "Ax" or "Ax-man," which is short for the significantly wordier Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.
- Marco actually does this quite a bit. Jake is usually "Big Guy," while Tobias is usually "Bird-Boy."
- In the Elemental Logic series, Zanja calls the family's daughter Leeba "Little Hurricane".
- This trope is actually a plot point in one of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps stories. The main heroine's father calls her "Fatso" (in the book version) or "Princess" (in the TV adaptation). During the course of the story, her father starts behaving strangely, and it turns out to be because it's actually an evil plant replacement. So how does the heroine eventually figure out who's her real father? The evil plant calls her by her real name, while the real McCoy is able to remember the nickname.
- In the Southern Sisters Mysteries, Mary Alice calls Patricia Anne "Mouse", Patricia Anne calls Mary Alice "Sister", and Haley calls Mary Alice "Aunt Sister." In case you couldn't tell, they're all related— "Mouse" and "Sister" are their childhood nicknames for one another, and Haley picked it up from her mother.
- Wives and Daughters: Mr Gibson calls his daughter Molly "Goosey". She's the apple of his eye, and she loves nobody more than him.
Live Action TV
- In How I Met Your Mother, Marshall calls his wife Lily, "Lilypad", while she calls him "Marshmallow."
- Sawyer from LOST nicknamed Kate 'Freckles'.
- Dean in Supernatural usually gives nicknames to people he's close to. Sam is Sammy and Castiel is Cas.
- Criminal Minds:
- Morgan and Garcia call each other a myriad of affectionate nicknames; a common name for him to call her is "Baby Girl".
- JJ is the only person - in the world, apparently - who calls Reid "Spence".
- Morgan, on the other hand, usually calls him "Pretty Boy."
- Bones:
- Booth is both the one to call Brennan "Bones" and the only one allowed to call her that. She hated it at first (so much so that "Don't call me Bones" was one of her two main Catch Phrases), but has come to tolerate it. As of the second-season episode "The Boneless Bride in the River," she's even been willing to refer to herself by the nickname.
- Booth referred to everyone else at the Jeffersonian as "squints" (because they're always squinting at something in the lab). This started out as an insult, back when Booth didn't really understand the impressive things they did, but as Booth became less of a Fish out of Water in the lab, it became much more affectionate. The rotation of interns that replace Zack are subsequently nicknamed the "squinterns."
- There's Daisy, who's nicknamed Sweets "Lancelot".
- When Lindsay Monroe arrived on CSI NY, Danny quickly dubbed her 'Montana' after her home state. It started out as a teasing sort of thing, but evolved into a sign of affection. It's not popping up as much now that they're married, though. He's more often hear to just call her 'Linds' or 'Babe' these days. (He did use the nickname in the hospital in 'Unspoken', and she said he hadn't used it in a while.
- On Boy Meets World, Cory often calls his Heterosexual Life Partner Shawn "Shawnie".
- On Angel, Fred liked to call Wes Bookman during their all-too-brief romance before Illyria came to town.
- On House Of Anubis, Eddie calls Patricia "Yacker." In a strange twist, this actually started as an insult, then took on a new meaning when they started dating.#
- In early seasons of Scrubs, Carla calls J.D. "Bambi", sometimes to his irritation. When JD gets his own intern to mentor, he naturally becomes "Thumper". Much later we get this conversation:
J.D.: Hey, how come you never gave me a hard time when I was starting out?
Carla: You were Bambi. Somebody had to teach you how to walk.
- In Flashpoint, like most military units, law enforcement teams and armed services, nicknames are used more than real names. "Jules" for Julianna Callaghan, "Spike" for Michelangelo Scarlatti, "Wordy" for Kevin Wordsworth, "Lou" for Lewis Young, "Boss" for Greg Parker, "Raf" for Rafik Rousseau. So much that it's weird and rare to hear any of their real names. But for some of the team like Sam, Ed and Leah, their names aren't shortened at all.
- In Married... with Children Al calls his daughter, Kelly "Pumpkin".
- In All in the Family, Archie calls his (adult) daughter, Gloria "little girl".
- Horatio Hornblower:
- "The Duchess and the Devil": Horatio, at this point an Acting Lieutenant, befriends a cheeky British Duchess who affectionately calls him "Mr Aitch", sometimes pronounced "Mr Haitch". He's a bit embarrassed at first with her likeable mocking and attentions, but ultimately, he quite likes it.
- Maria Mason calls Horatio "Horry", and apparently thinks it's cute. He doesn't like it one bit and considers it an Embarrassing Nickname. Not that he ever tells her.
- In Fawlty Towers, Basil calls his wife Sybil things like "my little piranha fish" and "my little nest of vipers" in a tone that mocks the sweetness with which people call others by actual affectionate nicknames. Sybil doesn't seem to notice or care.
Newspaper Comics
- In Popeye, we have Scooner Seawell Georgia Washenting Christiffer Columbia Daniel Boom, or as he's more commonly known, Popeye's lil' Swee'Pea.
- Sally from Peanuts is constantly calling Linus "my sweet baboo." Linus always makes sure to clarify that HE IS NOT HER SWEET BABOO!
- One TV special (with dialogue word-for-word from a strip) has Charlie Brown call the Little Red-Haired Girl this in a letter. "It's a...family expression."
- Peppermint Patty invariably calls Charlie Brown "Chuck". In an inversion, she usually addresses Lucy by her full name, Lucille.
Video Games
- In Grand Theft Auto San Andreas the Triad clan lead by Wu Xi Mu refer to their leader as their "lucky mole" due to his uncanny ability to participate in gunfights, car races, and video games despite being blind.
- In Mass Effect, if you are on friendly terms with her, Ashley Williams will refer to Commander Shepard as Skipper.
- In Mass Effect 2, Kasumi will often call you "Shep". Given that she's a fan of you, it definitely fits this trope.
- Male!Shepard calls Tali "Miss Vas Normandy" if romanced. It falls under this because that's not actually her last name (just the name of her ship, which got changed to the Normandy following her trial).
- Thane calls Female!Shepard "siha" if romanced, a reference to one of the warrior-angels of the drell goddess Arashu, fierce in wrath and a tenacious protector.
- And James calls Shepard "Loco" (if male) or "Lola" (if female) in Mass Effect 3.
- Varric has nicknames for everyone, but the closest example to this trope is probably "Daisy", for Merrill.
- Isabela joins in by calling Merrill "Kitten."
- Tiki in Fire Emblem Akaneia calls her Parental Substitute Bantu "Ban-Ban" and later calls Marth "Mar-Mar". (this is an adaptation of her use of accectionate honourifics in the Japanese version) Justified in that, despite being a thousand year old Dragon, slow aging means she's mentally still a small child.
Visual Novels
- In Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, Junpei is called "Jumpy" by his childhood friend June, while June is called "Kanny" by Junpei.
- Ace Attorney has nicknames for several player characters, typically made by each character's respective sidekick:
- Phoenix: "Nick", by Maya
- Although the nickname "Nick" for Phoenix was first coined by Larry Butz. Maya becomes very attached to it, though.
- Mia: "Kitten", by Diego
- Apollo: "Polly", by Trucy
- Kay Faraday also calls Detective Gumshoe "Gummy". Larry Butz calls Edgeworth "Edgey". And Wendy Oldbag... Well, let's not talk about Wendy Oldbag and Edgeworth.
- Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai has plenty of nicknames to go around: Gen-san's actual name is Tadakatsu Minamoto, which doesn't come up very often. The whole family calls Shouichi "Cap", short for Captain, and Momoyo, being a year older than everyone else, is "Momo-senpai". Yukie is called Mayucchi by her friends and Mayumayu by Momoyo; Kazuko is known by all as Wanko, but she's also in the habit of doling out nicknames herself - Tacchan for Gen-san, for instance, and Kuri for Chris. This is important later on in the latter two's respective routes, where Yamato starts calling them by their given names instead - in particular, in Wanko's path, Momoyo catches on to their Relationship Upgrade via a sudden lack of this trope.
- In the visual novel Sharin no Kuni, all three heroines have a unique nickname for the protagonist, Morita Kenichi. Touka always calls him by his full name, "Morita Kenichi". Sacchi calls him "Moriken", a mashing of his first and last name. Natsumi calls him "Ken-chan" because they are affectionate childhood friends.
Web Comics
- In Something Positive, Davan and Aubrey sometimes call each other "Woogie" (Davan) and "Monkeybutter" (Aubrey). A Flashback series of strips gives the origin of this in their first meeting.
- In Roommates many people end up with a nickname or two, but Mr. King (aka. the Erlkönig) calling his (ex-)wife (Jadis, the White Witch) "My Snowflake" takes the cake (and is a CMOF).
- Zoophobia's Damian (and a few other characters) calls Addison "Addi".
Web Original
- Mille of Ilivais X takes to calling Iriana "Ir" early on even before they have any romantic moments, with a justification along the lines of "it's four syllables in six letters!" Iriana has a bit of contempt for it at first but quickly gets over it.
- Chaka of Team Kimba in the Whateley Universe often calls Ayla "Ayles". She also calls Hank "Hulkster" (he's a Flying Brick). Ayla calls Jade and Jinn (and Jade's stuff) the "J-Team".
Western Animation
- Jimmy of Jimmy Two-Shoes calling Lucius Heinous the 7th 'Lucy', despite Lucius' hatred of the name (and Jimmy).
- Inverted in Phineas and Ferb with Jeremy. In the episode The Baljeatles, Jeremy suddenly becomes The Nicknamer and nicknames everybody except Candace. When she finally stops trying to make him nickname her and confronts him about it, he says "I call you Candace, but not because I don't care enough to come up with a cute nickname for you. I call you Candace, cuz, I happen to really like that name." Aww...
- Kim Possible is called "KP" by her friend and boyfriend Ron Stoppable.
- Total Drama Island:
- Duncan seems to do this for girls he likes; his first girlfriend, Courtney, was "Princess," while his second, Gwen, is "Pasty."
- As per his Sarcastic Devotee nature, Noah gives semi-affectionate nicknames to people he cares about; Izzy is "Nutsie", Eva is "Iron Woman", Owen is "Lunchbox", etc.
- In Doug, the title character's older sister would always refer to him as "Dougie."
- On Daria, Jake often refers to Daria as "Kiddo," though he never uses it for his younger daughter, Quinn. This comes among other hints that Jake and Daria are particularly close.
- Similarly, Trent always refers to Jane as "Janie." This could also be used to show their particular closeness (though there's at least one example of their other brother, Wind, using this one too).
- Bubble Guppies: Molly refers to Gil as "Gilly". Doesn't help their "subtext" at all.
- On a similar note, Deema calls Nonny "Nonners"...
- On X-Men: Evolution Lance likes to refer to Kitty as "Pretty Kitty" and "Kit Kat" alternately. Pretty Kitty seemed originally intended as a teasing insult, while Kit Kat shows up more often once he starts admitting his crush on her.
- On Aaaah! Real Monsters, Oblina will call her best friends Ickis and Krumm, "Icky" and "Krummy" respectively with "Icky" coming up a lot more in conversation. She also calls Ickis a "lazy bunny" both playfully and out of annoyance. His retort is usually "Stick-Lips" although he has admitted that he likes that feature in her.
- On Young Justice, Cheshire calls her husband Roy "Red."
- On My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle's older brother Shining Armor calls her "Twiley", and she calls him BBBFF (short for "Big Brother Best Friend Forever").
- Motorcity: Mike calls Julie "Jules/Jewels." Mike and Chuck often refer to each other as "Mikey" and "Chuckles" which adds to the Ho Yay factor.
Real Life
- Boys and girls (usually children) are keen on calling each other something. Sometimes it sticks like glue to a wall and other times it doesn't.
- It's common with parents towards their children.
- Online aliases tend to stick with people when they actually meet their online acquaintances. It's one of the reasons they shouldn't choose anything embarrassing).
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