WOOKINPANUB must be my brother from another mother. I grew up in San Diego ('60s and early '70s, in my case), and we always called all varieties of candy-on-a-stick ‘suckers.’ Remember Charms? Those were my favorites. I switched over to ‘lollipop’ in high school because it’s a fun word.
Suffering Sucatash! There appears to be no resolution to my question. The regional variation (even by a few kilometers, it seems) is amazing. But my friends don’t have to know that. I’ll just claim that the Teeming Millions agreed with my usage.
Timmins, Ontario … way up north. Home of Shania Twain and (almost) Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Another data point: as a kid in the 70s, in Saskatchewan, my friends and I called them “suckers.” “Lollipop” would have been uncool and baby-ish – like Shirley Temple dancing around in ringlets and short dresses.