Celebrity pet names

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Celebrity pet names

Tue 5th Feb 2013

The traditional view of Britons as a race of diffident, single-eyebrow-raising sarcasm-mongers seemed to suggest that they were not the kind of people to stoop to using vulgar American pet names for their significant others.

If they were to do so, it would surely be a vowel-heavy, elegant 'darling' rather than the Valley Girl clunk of 'babe' or 'doll'.

But a new survey from Lovehoney has suggested that tastes are changing in the UK with regards to how people address the object of their affection, with just 11 per cent of respondents admitting to using traditional favourite 'darling' on a regular basis.

On the other hand, just under 31 per cent of people call their partner 'babe' or 'baby', while one in eight opt for 'love' or 'lovely'. According to the survey, the fact that 50 Shades of Grey protagonist Christian Grey signs off his messages to lover Anastasia Steele with 'Laters Baby' could have played a major role in the nickname's increasing popularity.

Lovehoney co-founder Neal Slateford said: "The ways pet names have changed over the years show we are getting even more affectionate towards each other and a little less formal."

One way stuffy Brits could liven up their choice of pet names is to take inspiration from the stars, who have gone public with calling each other by some fairly embarrassing monikers over the years.

Here are some of the most startling:

Brangelina

Obviously Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie have very little shame when it comes to names, as is evinced by the fact that they allow the media at large to call them something that sounds like a topical cream for a disgusting skin disease.

The celebrity couple apparently refer to each other as Miffy and Kitty, with the Sun reporting that they do not save these terms of endearment for the bedroom but happily use them in the presence of others.

To be fair, the act of being as famous, successful and attractive as Pitt and Jolie is probably an effective inoculation against any kind of embarrassment, as is having six children with names like Maddox and Zahara.

Shane Warne and Liz Hurley

Shane Warne - an immensely talented cricketer who has spent his retirement finding different ways to slowly chip away at his national treasure status in Australia - is another celebrity who I imagine is fairly unlikely to blush, and not only because his face is the colour of Moroccan sandstone.

"Elizabeth calls me a lot more than just the Big Blond - she has dozens of names for me, all of them too embarrassing to share," Shane told Hello! magazine, ominously.

"I have a handful for her, too, but I usually call her Luna as there was a terrible paparazzi picture of her once looming in to kiss me, which reminded me of the massive mouth at the entrance of Luna Park, the Australian theme park."

The Obamas

The Obamas are admittedly in a different league to everyone else on this list - after Michelle Obama is an extremely influential figure in the glamorous middle-aged women fashion market, which is a lucrative sector.

Anyway, her stock can only rocket after she revealed in an interview with Good Housekeeping that she calls her photogenic house-husband and occasional politician Barack 'Pumski'. Why we can only speculate.

Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner

Back before Hugh had changed his ways (I mean, he still owns a mansion solely dedicated to the storage of part-naked women, but apart from that) and got hitched to Crystal Harris, he dated a model called Holly Madison.

Apparently she used to refer to her aged, crinkly beau as Puffin, presumably in reference to the heavy breathing his every movement is accompanied by.

Posh and Becks

Footballer and underwear model David Beckham and his wife, pop-star-turned-fashion-designer Victoria, have lit up the public's imagination ever since they got hitched. The story of Beckham seeing his future partner on TV and deciding that was the woman he would marry is romantic, and they make an attractive pair, despite Posh's strict no smiling policy.

She revealed in an interview on Parkinson 2001 that she calls her husband 'golden balls', before putting her hand over her mouth and indicating that she might have shared a little too much with the veteran broadcaster.

Although given Becks' penchant for parading around in his briefs, most of the world has already formed its own opinion on the merchandise.