Pet Names

The other day I was thinking about all the silly pet names we have for our dogs. It all started with Bentley, who quickly became Bents for short. Then that morphed into Benci, which is a Hungarian name (Karlo’s cousin’s name). And his cutesy name was Benci Wenci . . . then I would add “with the meatball eyes” because you know . . . he had meatball eyes!


Next came Peanut, AKA the Nut, or Nuts for short. But of course we couldn’t stop there. She is also fondly known (and responses quite promptly to) Stinky, Slinky, and Princess.

Now Cooper is on the scene and his obvious nickname is Coop, but that quickly became Coopy, Coopy Poopy, Pooper, and of course Pooper Scooper. Yes, I actually call him Pooper Scooper and he comes running. Actually he’ll come happily running to anything that rhymes with Cooper . . . he’s just so excited to be called.

So this thought process also led me to think about the list of nicknames that Karlo calls me. For years he lovingly called me all these names and finally I asked him what they all meant. You ready for this? Here’s the list:

Kacsa - [pronounced Ka-tcha] - the literal translation for this is duck. Funny how he refuses to let me have a duck, but he calls me a duck. Go figure.

Tucsok matyi - [pronounced tu-chuck-mutt-chee] Tucsok means cricket and Karlo said that he just likes the sound of the word. Not really intending to call me a cricket. And the second part is just a nickname for a real Hungarian name which in English is Matias. OK, whatever the heck that is supposed to be all about.

Julcsa - [pronounced uewl-cha] This one makes the cricket sound good. Julsca is the pet name that you would give a cow. Yes, a COW. Sort of like our “Bessie” but it gets even better. Karlo explained that you would use a different variation of the name . . in his exact words, “ . . . if you were talking lovingly to the cow. But if the cow was being bad and you were yelling at it, you would say Uewl CHAAAAAA.” So not only is he calling me a cow, but he’s calling me a bad cow! And this does make me stop to wonder what on earth a cow could be doing that is bad . . . sitting on the furniture, walking over cars, stealing shoes, chewing homework . . .

Cincy-pincy - [pronounced tzincee-pincee] - That first word is pronounced similar to the Italian word for aunt Zizi. I can’t even spell it phonetically. This one loosely translates to little or tiny cat. Given that Karlo doesn’t like cats, this too makes me wonder.

And for his English nicknames . . . he also calls me ‘SweetP’ (finally something truly sweet) and also ‘bad chicken.’ Good grief.

I think I’m going to go work on a new list of new nicknames for him.

So what are your family nicknames? Come on, I told you mine. Nothing can be worse then these!