Pre-Natal Nicknames: Peanut and Pie

Sometimes pre-natal nickname stories have a happy ending.

For instance, when my British mother-in-law was pregnant with my husband, she was planning to follow the family tradition of using the initials C and R for the names of the boys in the family. Dad was Roy Colin, and they settled on Roger Clive for their first son. The only thing was that all through the pregnancy, her in-laws insisting on referring to the fetus as Christopher Robin, as in “How’s little Christopher Robin doing?” In the end, they heard this so often that when the time came, he couldn’t be anything but Christopher Robin – and their second son became Roger Clive.

Granted, that isn’t really a nickname example – this is more about the sometimes silly pet names we give our babies-to-be which shouldn’t be allowed into the delivery room. Think of little Peanut Rademacher, son of General Hospital star Ingo. Now picture him calling up a girl for a date and saying “Hi, my name is Peanut Rademacher.” It seems that, according to the dad, “We were calling him that when he was in mommy” and they couldn’t let it go.

Of course the individual names people use in pregnancy are infinite, but here are a few not-to-go-on-the-birth-certificate examples I’ve run across. (And bear in mind the title of one of our favorite blogs–“You can’t call it ‘it’!”

BABY DUMPLING

BEAN

BINKY

BUMPKIN, LUMPKIN, PUMPKIN

BUMPO

BUMPY, JUMPY

BUNNY

CHICKPEA

CLETUS (the fetus)

EMBRY

FISHY

FRISKY

GIBLET, NIBLET

GREMLIN

JUNEBUG

JUNIOR

LAMBKIN

LOLLIPOP

MONKEY

MUNCHKIN

NUGGET

PEANUT

PEEWEE

PIE

POPPET

PIXEL

PIXIEPOOH

PUDDING

SCHMOO

SHRIMP

SMIDGE

SNOOKIE

SNOOKS

SPROUT

SQUIRT

SWEETPEA

TOOTSIE

TOOTSIE ROLL

WEENIE

You probably have one or two of your own to add to the list.