Speaking of variations, my almost-6-year-old niece has the oddest "term" of endearment I've ever heard -- she changes the last syllable in the thing she loves' name to "-is" (or occasionally adds -is on to the end of the name). Thus her cat Hunter becomes Huntis and my daughter is Abigailis. No idea where she picked it up from, but my wife and I have picked it up from her.