expert in southern slang

the south is a very romantic place . Southern parents are wonderful. write back if you are one or can explain the meaning of nickname sugar dumpling - not the pastry first time fascination with nicknames.

It’s just an endearment that associates the loved one with something sweet (sugar, honey, sweetie, etc.). I just assume that the funny sound of “dumpling” makes it a good endearment to use with children, to make them laugh.

It wasn’t common in my Georgia family, but I have heard it. Not sure it’s exclusively or typically southern.

What brought it to mind?

Dumplings are actually very rich, so it's just further emphasis on the sweet. My GA family uses it all the time. I just assumed it was a Southern thing, like the way we all use "honey" for everyone.

recently found song title for that nickname .

Can you tell us more about the song?

performed by sam cooke .

Yeah
Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
I love you in every way
Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
My love grows stronger every day

Listen how I tell you a story
A story about my girl
And I call hear Sugar Dumpling
Because she's the sweetest things in this world

Whenever I'm feeling bad by the way she puts me to bed
And she hides two mercys
One to hold my hand the other one to rub my hand

Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
I love you in every way
Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
My love grows stronger every day

Whenever I tell her honey I'm hungry now go and fix me something to eat
The girl rushes in the kitchen and fixes me a dinner
With seven different kinds of meat
If I call her up at two o'clock in the morning and come over if you can
Before I hang up to telephone she's sitting beside me
With a cup of coffee in her hand

Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
I love you in every way
Sugar dumpling
You're my baby
My love grows stronger every day

Now I'm hungry.

In the original Blondie comic strip, and in at least some of the movies, Blondie and Dagwood's first child (now Alexander) was called "Baby Dumpling".
I think the "dumpling" endearment has often been applied to babies because they are so soft and plump...like a good dumpling. I'm not sure that's a totally southern U.S. thing.

We're better known for calling people "Sugar" down here than anything, and we like our dumplin's with chicken.

Not sure it's exclusively Southern, either, though I hear plenty of "sugar" being used-- as an endearment or as a general form of address (I'm a librarian, and a patron might very well call me that, not as a form of endearment but just as a casual thing tacked on to "thank you").

I just finished 'The Unvanguished' by William Faulkner, can anyone, familiar with Faulkner, recommend a sequential order in which to read some of his other works that are related to his fictional county in Mississippi, or doesn't it matter? Thanks

OHO! I smell a recruit. Hitch up your wagon and get on over to the William Faulkner group, where there has been some discussion from time to time of what to read first, next and so on. Here's a link to one of my posts on the subject. Anyone else who might feel like talking about Faulkner, please check out William Faulkner and his Literary Kin.