Originally Posted by maleficent

I'm called Aunt by the children of a few friends... They aren't related to me, and I'm not even sure they are really close friends, but the parents try to instill in the children respect for adults and calling me by my first name just isn't appropriate ( to them), but calling me Ms and my last name is way too formal... So Auntie seems to be the happy medium.

A very proper Southern friend of mine, her darling boy calls me Mizz Mellyellen (He's had a tough time with my first name) but for the same reason, just calling me by my first name isn't appropriate for children and using Ms and my last name is too formal.

Back when I was a kid, there were some friends of my parents that I referred to as Uncle whatever or Aunt whatever... it's really a term that doesn't mean a lot of anything...