How long have men called women (or their significant other) “baby”? I have seen references to it in American popular culture going back to the turn of the century.
Baby, its cold outside.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary states the following under definition number 7 of the word “baby”:
7 A person; a thing; a young woman, a girlfriend. Freq. as a form of address, slang (chiefly N. Amer.). M19.
so, according to Oxford, this usage dates to the middle of the nineteenth century. I don’t have an American usage dictionary with me; such a reference work might give a different time period.
michael.
I don’t know about baby, but “Babe,” in the early part of last century, was a popular nickname for largish men. George Herman Ruth was one - and both Oliver Hardy and Jerome “Curly” Howard were known to their family members as “Babe.”