Don't Mean Maybe

May 26, 2009 5:42 PM

When did calling someone "baby" become an popular expression of love/affection (other than in the parent-child relationship)? Particularly in music?

The earliest song example I could find was 1925 (Yes Sir, That's my Baby). Does anyone know something earlier? When did it become common?

posted by orrnyereg to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

From the Online Etymology Dictionary: As a term of endearment for one's lover it is attested perhaps as early as 1839, certainly by 1901; its popularity perhaps boosted by baby vamp "a popular girl," student slang from c.1922.
posted by katillathehun at 5:48 PM on May 26, 2009

The OED cites the earliest usage as 1839 (Jrnl. Residence Georgian Plantation) but notes that "The degree of slanginess of the nineteenth-century examples is not easily determinable". The examples from the early 20th century (as in 1901-1918) seem to mark its emergence as a commonly used term.
posted by Paragon at 6:30 PM on May 26, 2009

The earliest song I can find is 1897, but, uh, lyrics are offensive. "Hello! Ma Baby," the classic ragtime, is from 1899. It looks like the earliest references I have found so far are in a particular, stereotypical genre from the turn of the 19th-20th century.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:49 PM on May 26, 2009

Claude Brown's memoir Manchild in the Promised Land has an interesting passage about when he first heard the term used among black men and boys (of which he was/is one)--probably in the 1940s or 50s. The book's probably out of print but you should be able to find it in a library.
posted by scratch at 7:20 PM on May 26, 2009

Is this question restricted to the English language? I would expect that "baby" would have been used as a term of endearment for millennia, with citations possible in various languages. That's just a gut feeling, I can't provide specific examples. But I wonder if you want them.
posted by alms at 8:01 PM on May 26, 2009

alms: Is this question restricted to the English language? I would expect that "baby" would have been used as a term of endearment for millennia, with citations possible in various languages. That's just a gut feeling, I can't provide specific examples. But I wonder if you want them.

You might expect that, but I don't know why; I'm familiar with at least three other languages (though I'm not claiming I really know any of them) and I can't think of a single example of another language that uses "baby" as an diminutive that expresses endearment. Can you?

The poster asked for examples; if you can give them, they would help.
posted by koeselitz at 9:59 PM on May 26, 2009

And, no, ancient Greeks didn't use νήπῐος as an endearing nickname.
posted by koeselitz at 10:06 PM on May 26, 2009

I used to read movie mags in the hairdresser while waiting for mum. Back in the day, Bardot was referred to by her initials which sounds the same/similar to the French word for baby. Whether that was a bit of faux Hollywood gloss or whether the French thought bebe was a good name for the very young Bardot, I don't know.
posted by x46 at 10:22 PM on May 26, 2009

scratch: Claude Brown's memoir Manchild in the Promised Land has an interesting passage about when he first heard the term used among black men and boys (of which he was/is one)--probably in the 1940s or 50s. The book's probably out of print but you should be able to find it in a library.

Hmm.

Here's that passage [via Google Books] from pages 164 through 165:

The first time I heard the expression “baby” used by one cat to address another was up at Warwick in 1951. Gus Jackson used it. The term had a hip ring to it, a real colored ring. The first time I heard it, I knew right away I had to start using it. It was like saying, “Man, look at me. I've got masculinity to spare.” It was saying at the same time to the world, “I'm one of the hippest cats, one of the most uninhibited cats on the scene. I can say 'baby' to another cat, and he can say 'baby' to me, and we can say it with strength in our voices.” If you could say it, this meant that you really had to be sure of yourself, sure of your masculinity.

It seemed that everybody in my age group was saying it. The next thing I knew, older guys were saying it. Then just about everybody in Harlem was saying it, even the cats who weren't so hip. It became just one of those things.

The real hip thing about the “baby” term was that it was something that only colored cats could say the way it was supposed to be said. I'd heard gray boys trying it, but they really couldn't do it. Only colored cats could give it the meaning that we all knew it had without ever mentioning it—the meaning of black masculinity.

Before the Muslims, before I'd heard about the Coptic or anything like that, I remember getting high on the corner with a bunch of guys and watching the chicks go by, fine little girls, and saying, “Man, colored people must be something' else!”

Somebody'd say, “Yeah. How about that? All those years, man, we was on the plantation in those shacks, eating just potatoes and fatback and chitterlin's and greens, and look at what happened. We had Joe Louises and Jack Johnsons and Sugar Ray Robinsons and Henry Armstrongs, all that sort of thing.”

Somebody'd say, “Yeah, man. Niggers must be some real strong people who just can't be kept down. When you think about it, that's really something great. Fatback, chitterlin's, greens, and Joe Louis. Negroes are some beautiful people. Uh-huh. Fatback, chitterlin's, greens, and Joe Louis... and beautiful black bitches.”

Cats would come along with the “baby” thing. It was something that went over strong in the fifites with the jazz musicians and the hip set, the boxers, the dancers, the comedians, just about every set in Harlem. I think everybody said it real loud because they liked the way it sounded. It was always, “Hey, baby. How you doin', baby?” in every phase of the Negro hip life. As a matter of fact, I went to a Negro lawyer's office once, and he said, “Hey, baby”—and he knew how to say it—you felt as though you had something strong in common.

I suppose it's the same thing that almost all Negroes have in common, the fatback, chitterlings, and greens background. I suppose that regardless of what any Negro in America, might do or how high he might rise in social status, he still has something in common with every other Negro. I doubt that they're many, if any, gray people who could ever say “baby” to a Negro and make him feel that “me and this cat have got something going, something strong going.”

In the fifties, when “baby” came around, it seemed to be the prelude to a whole new era in Harlem. It was the introduction to the era of black reflection. A fever started spreading. Perhaps the strong rising of the Muslim movement is something that helped sustain or even usher in this era.

I remember that in the early fifties, cats would stand on the corner and talk, just shooting the stuff, all the street-corner philosophers. Sometimes, it was a common topic—cats talking about gray chicks—and somebody might say something like, “Man, what can anybody see in a gray chick, when colored chicks are so fine; they got so much soul.” This was the common meaning of the “soul” thing too.

“Soul” had started coming out of the churches and the nightclubs into the streets. Everybody started talking about “soul” as though it were something that they could see on people or a distinct characteristic of colored folks.

Cats would say things like, “Man, gray chicks seem so stiff.” Many of them would say they couldn't talk to them or would wonder how a cat who was used to being so for real with a chick could see anything in a gray girl. It seemed as though the mood of the day was turning toward the color thing.

Everybody was really digging themselves and thinking and saying in their behavior, in every action, “Wow! Man, it's a beautiful thing to be colored.” Everybody was saying, “Oh, the beauty of me! Look at me. I'm colored. And look at us. Aren't we beautiful?”

I don't think that it's really talking about the same precise use of the word—more of a riff on the original—but it's interesting regarding the history of the word, so I've quoted it at length. Manchild In The Promised Land was published in 1965.
posted by koeselitz at 10:39 PM on May 26, 2009

The waitress at the fast food place near me uses "mijo" with some of her older male customers. I think the literal translation would be "my son". I think her usage comes close to meaning "honey" but it could slide over into "baby". I could easily be wrong since I only have a few words of spanish.
posted by rdr at 12:33 AM on May 27, 2009

I'm mostly interested in English usage; my gut feeling (rightly or wrongly) is that it's primarily an English phenomenon.

Who knew there was so much out there? Thanks tons, you guys!
posted by orrnyereg at 5:57 AM on May 27, 2009

The first time I heard the expression “baby” used by one cat to address another...

Emphasis added. The Brown quote is about guys using it to address other guys and is irrelevant to the question (though very interesting in its own right), because it presupposes earlier use between the sexes. (Also, people's memories of when they first heard an expression are notoriously unreliable.)
posted by languagehat at 7:31 AM on May 27, 2009

The earliest cite in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang is from 1869: Stowe, Oldtown 184: "Yes, Tina, I am glad...but, baby, we can't stop to say so much, because we must...get...way off before daylight." Ibid: "Don't let 's talk any more, baby." But this is between two children (you can read it in context here). The next cite is 1889: Harte, Dedlow Marsh 9: "'Lean on me, baby,' he returned, passing his arm around her waist." But this is between brother and sister. (Context here.) The next cite is from 1890, Dobie Rainbow 162 (presumably J. Frank Dobie, Rainbow in the Morning): "Well, Baby, your house rent's due" (a song lyric; you can see some more in the snippet view here—warning: references to prostitution and presumably obscene insults represented by dashes).
posted by languagehat at 3:21 PM on May 27, 2009