This is nick names tag by the wonderful Tharini.

From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1594:

JULIET:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Google reveals that, this is Shakespeare’s ‘yidakkaradakkal’.
YI-DA-K-KA-RA-DA-K-KAL, tamil grammer term which signifies the situations when you are pulling some one’s leg by talking highly of them and viceversa. Typical example that was quoted to me in my eigth standard: A king(K1) who is fairly inexperienced in war has recently declared war against a king(K2) who is a war veteran. A Tamil poet, after inspecting K1’s infantry tells him, “Wow, your weapons are all shiny and new, where as K2’s weapons are all coated with blood and mud from the hundreds of wars he has participated in”. K1 gets the hint and decides to go for a diplomatic settlement. The poet points out K1’s lack of experience by sweet words and K2’s chivalry by putting him down.

How much ever my roses smell, believe me they can get unbelievably offensive, all the nicks they have is purely out of love! Most of them are common for both my roses.

Mottai, mottai boss(Both the kids were called this by hubby when we had shaved their head)
Kanna(Hubby, my father, my mother for both the kids)
Pattu, Pattu chellam (My MIL for both the kids)
Chinni pattu, Pattamma, pattani, chinna pattani
Kutti, kuttani, kuttamma
Kannu, kannamma
Kanne, maniye, karpagakiliye
Annakili (Out of the blue called Chula this when she was born and my mom tells me that my great grandma used to call me by this nick!)
Rajaathi
Chellam
Chinaani, chamathaani

Weird it may seem, purely out of 100% love I swear 🙂

Erumai maadu, silly girl (Exclusivley for Chula)
Pettai rowdy, Pisaasu, loose kutti (Mieja special)

The songs are mostly on-the-spot kind of things. Mieja says ‘Agooo’ and I sart singing ‘Agooni, kuttani, woonda pattani’ to the tune of the nursery rhyme that happens to jump to my mind.

Now, the interesting part. Chula has some nick for us.
She used to say ‘Appa, you are a princess’. The poor man tried to make her understand that he is no princess….may be a hulk…. a warrior…. a MAN…something with an ‘Arrrgh’, some one who has no ‘foo-foo’ in him. But she kept persisting that he is a princess. His essense would just revolt every time she called him ‘princess’. After days of struggle one fine night, as he was putting Chula to bed, she said, ‘Appa, you are a princess’ and the poor soul accepted defeat and said, ‘Yes baby. I am a princess. Whatever.’ Now she calls him princess no more! She now calls him ‘Appa-boy!’. Re-enactment of no-boy, arrrgh-man scene takes place every no and then.

Chula calls me ‘kitty cat’. The cool cat I am, it sits well with me. She also calls me ‘Amma-boy’, ‘Amma-girl’ and ‘Silly amma'(especially when I am doing some silly dance for/with her).

Chula calls Mieja as Mieja. She hugs her little sister and goes, ‘Oh, she is such a cute baby sister’.

Mieja does her own share of name calling. Out of pure frustration, especially at the times when I am trying to shovel food in to her mouth, calls me by my name and says ‘NO’. She does not stop with that, she also pushes me away from her, and hold her little palm in my face, just in case I didn’t get the message! Mieja would suddenly drop whatever she is playing with and run to Chula and hug her. Such suddenly surges of affection is accompanied by ‘Assshu daaayaing huhchumaadul’ and the likes of such, which I am sure translates to ‘Oh, you are such a cute big sister’.

But whatever silly name we are called by, we always answer to the call, even if we don’t always agree with the names. 🙂

Updated to add: Memory is still poor, how could I have forgotten this??!
Mieja is also called
‘Vaalu'(Literal translation ‘tail’, means the naughty one ). Even Chula says, ‘Nee seriyana vaalu’.
Kutti monkey
Kozhukattai(means dumpling, owing to her chubbiness)

Both kids have been called chappai mooku(meaning ‘flat nose’. God, it took almost 6 months for their nose to raise!)
Both were called ‘Achunoo’ by my first SIL.