Personally, I have never gotten the hype by the names “baby,” “babe,” “bae,” “honey,” it feels forced to me. I’ve seen those TikTok videos where as a joke people will address their spouses by their real names and the spouses get mad and say something like “my family and friends can call me that, but you can’t.” I’ve never gotten the seriousness of it. If we already know we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife, why should I have to address you by those names? Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with saying them, but using real names should become more common as well.
It’s heavily because you call out to your SO a lot, and their full name is a mouthful.
Typically words like “babe”, “hun”, etc are the lowest effort pet name. The “b” percussive is one of the easiest to pronounce.
Usually this is simply to make communication faster and easier, “hun” is way faster to say than whatever their full name is.
This becomes do commonplace that after being together for many years, their full name is reserved for emergencies.
Like if you cut yourself or are hurt or whatever, you instinctually use their full name to grab their attention and alert them. (People alert to their full name way easier and can hear it better)
This results in producing an alarm “wtf?” response when you use it casually, it makes them whip their head up and their brain goes “is something wrong?”
Then when they realize the situation is fine, it becomes a sort of “you spooked me for nothing! Don’t!” result.
You effectively reserve the full name only when you are trying to get their attention.