International Terms of Endearment (Part 1)

The following are some affectionate terms some of our Melting Pot Moms use with their children:

Anak (ah-nak): "child"
Origin: Filipines

A widely used Filipino term of endearment is "anak" (ah-nak) which means "child". I use it for daughter and my mom still uses it for me! :)
Filipino families also use terms such as "Ate" (pronounced ah-teh) for an older sister and "Kuya" (pronounced koo-yah) for an older brother as terms of affection as well as signs of respect. The term can precede the name of the older sibling (for example, Ate Beth) or can be used on its own.
~ Lily



Mami (maah-mee): "baby"
Origin: Mexico

A Spanish word also known as mother, but used as a term of endearment for the little ones, too.

~ Margaret






Shayna punim (SHAY-nuh puh-NIM): "pretty face"
Origin: Yiddish language

I have a couple of Yiddish terms my family uses:

Mini mensch - for boys means good man

Shayna punim - means pretty face

~Trisha



Guagua (wa-wa): "baby"
Origin: Ecuador

When I’m holding Daniela, and she is holding her baby doll, sometimes I grab her and run really fast and say "Agarra a la guagua" (hold on to the baby).

"Guagua" its a term used by the natives in Ecuador; the laguage is called Quechua and it was the language spoken by Incas in all South America, and it means "baby" it's pronounced "wawa".

~ Diana

Other nicknames Diana uses: "pitufina" (Smurfette, from the Smurfs) or "torbellino" (small tornado).

Borgarka (bogharkha): "little bug"
Origin: Hungary

We use Slovak and Hungarian at home. So in Slovak, I use saso ("shasho"), which means clown in English. That one I use when Adam is being silly.
In Hungarian, my husband and I use bogarka ("bogharkha"), which means a little bug in English. That one we use quite often. :-)

~Denisa


Do you have a term of endearment you use for your little one? Feel free to share here in the comments, and we will feature your little one in "Part 2". :-)

Warm "Thanks" to Melting Pot Mom Sima, who inspired the idea for this post!