# Hey baby. How you do'in? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2001, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-how-you-doin/77678 "2001-08-23T05:40:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-how-you-doin/77678/1 "2001-08-23T05:40:25Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-how-you-doin/77678/2 "2001-08-23T05:44:54Z")
**Baby, its cold outside**. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-how-you-doin/77678/3 "2001-08-23T06:22:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-baby-how-you-doin/77678/4 "2001-08-23T06:28:47Z")
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.”