Okay I got a question for you, resident Batfam Expert! I’ve been reading a lot of fanfic recently (because I love pain) and I was wondering how many of the pet names the family calls each other are canon? Because they have A LOT and they’re all pretty consistent throughout the writings. Some of the ones I’ve noted regularly are Baby Bird, Little Wing, Jay, Jaylad, Jace, Timmers, Timbo, Dickie, Dickiebird, and then Bruce calling his kids ‘sweetheart’. (Adorable) Anyway, thanks! Don’t feel a need to rush in answering :) I’m in no hurry
Sorry it took me so long to get to all of these, I’ve spent the last few weeks scrounging up every single resource I could get my hands on so that I could make a comprehensive list of which nicknames are canon and which are fanon and it took a SUPER long time. The bottom line is I ended up accidentally making a whole-ass Google Slides for every single batkid nickname, and while the whole project isn’t anywhere near finished yet, I managed to complete the slides needed to answer all of these questions. So...yeah! Here’s what I found:
Jason seems to be the main nickname-user of the family, so aside from the aforementioned comics, there isn’t very much content of Dick being called “Dickie” or “Dickie-Bird”. (I also want to bring up “Big Bird,” which I see Jason calling Dick sometimes in fanfics. That one’s not canon anywhere, unfortunately.) Dick used to be called “Dickie” sometimes as a term of endearment during his circus days, but after that it’s not likely you’ll see any of his family members calling him something other than Dick.
Sadly, “Little Wing” hasn’t been used in any canon content after this comic, which is a major bummer since the fandom has turned it into one of Jason’s most popular nicknames (from Dick at least).
(I didn’t list the comic sources for the more widely used nicknames since they’re so common in comics that you could find them pretty much anywhere.)
I’d say that Bruce called Jason “Jay” far more during his Robin days than he does now, though that could be attributed to their more distant relationship nowadays. (Or maybe I just didn’t happen to read the specific modern comics in which he called Jason “Jay” or “Jace/Jase”.)
Yeahhh, sorry about this one. “Jaylad” is kind of the Schrödinger's cat of nicknames. The fandom ended up misconstruing the term over time. and losing the comma between “Jay” and “lad” so it became “Jaylad” and everyone just stuck with it.
The main person who seems to use this one is Roy Harper, as I haven’t yet found a comic in which one of Jason’s family members calls him “Jaybird”. You can open pretty much any comic with both Jason and Roy in it and expect Roy to say it at least once.
I haven’t seen anyone calling Tim “Timmers” in canon, but otherwise, most of the other common nicknames derived from Timothy are canon.
I always found it wild how Jason never once called Tim “Replacement” in a comic, and yet we all managed to latch onto it anyway and make it his go-to nickname for Tim? That takes some dedication, man. Otherwise, Jason called Tim “Pretender” a few times during Batman: Hush, and that was about it.
I know a lot of people hate the nickname “Babybird” (for whatever reason), but honestly, I’m really hoping that DC makes it a thing because dammit, we deserve this breadcrumb at least. As of right now, the only batkid who has ever been called “Babybird” was Damian, and it was by his mom. (In fanon, it’s typically Tim who is called “Babybird” while Dick is “Dickie-Bird” and Jason is “Little Wing”. Who decided this, I have no idea but I’m not complaining.) I also included “Baby Bat” since I see that one pretty often too, and that one is sadly not canon either. The DC writers really don’t want us getting our hands on any family fluff whatsoever, huh.
As for Bruce, I don’t think he’s ever called his kids a term of endearment more emotional than “son” or “pal” because he has the emotional capacity of a dried-up raisin. All of those nicknames like “sweetheart,” “honey,” “pumpkin,” and any other names a parent might call their child are banned from Batman’s dictionary as far as the writers are concerned. Will that make me stop having Bruce call his kids “sweetheart” in my fics every chance I get? Absolutely not.
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