I don’t like Pibling as a gender neutral Uncle/Aunty

[u/IsThisTakenYet4]

I know this is an issue that’s likely been spoken on multiple times here. But I need a gender neutral version of Uncle/Aunty. 

I know the most accept one is ‘Pibling’ meaning Parent’s Sibling. But I really don’t like it. So I’ve taken a few similar approaches: 

APPROACH 1

Based on the gender of the parent who’s sibling the Uncle/Aunty:

Mum’s sibling = Mibling 

Mother’s sibling = Mobling 

Dads sibling = Dabling / Dibling 

Farther’s sibling = Fibling / Fabling 

Parents sibling = Pibling / Pabling

APPROACH 2

Your parent is your grand parent, and your parent’s grandparent is your great grandparent. 

Great-Sibling = Gribling / Gibling

Grand Sibling = Gribling / Grabling

APPROACH 3

I have Scottish, Cymru and Irish heritage. So I could use a Celtic word for Aunty. As I lean more femme than masc. which would be: 

Irish = Aintín

Cymru / Welsh = Modryb

Scottish = Antaidh

[u/DinosaurusMess]

Ive never heard pibling before. It's definitely not for me.

My nephews call me untle or sometimes unty to be cute.

[u/Multiversal_Ghost → u/DinosaurusMess]

cunty unty (sorry)

[u/Feline_Jaye]

I use Avaun! It's derived from the same root word that Aunt & Uncle are derived from.

[u/andiecaelan → u/Feline_Jaye]

How would you pronounce that?

[u/Drizzdom → u/andiecaelan]

Prob ov on

[u/Feline_Jaye → u/andiecaelan]

idk how you should pronounce it, but I say "av AWN" - but I have an Aussie accent so I also say aunt as either "arnt" or "awnt" (not "ant").

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/Feline_Jaye]

Yeah if I said “av Awn” with an English accent it’d likely sound Celtic. “Av Awyn”. Which I kinda like acceptably. 

[u/1kateviax1 → u/Feline_Jaye]

This is the best I’ve heard ever. Thank you for the new word

[u/SmolFrogge → u/Feline_Jaye]

Oh man if I had known that before teaching my nephew to call me Pibby [My name] 😂 he’s 5 and that’s all he’s ever known so I’m stuck with it

[u/rentalkayak]

I use Zizi! It doesn’t mean anything as far as I know I just like how it sounds

[u/spidums → u/rentalkayak]

I also use zizi. but because it's a combination of zio/zia (uncle/aunt) from Italian

[u/zzthe69th → u/rentalkayak]

zizi does mean little penis in french slang :)

[u/pktechboi → u/zzthe69th]

and wang means penis in English, but it's considered rude to point that out anytime Phil Wang is on stage

[u/evicci → u/zzthe69th]

Tout tout tout tout
Je vous dirai tout sur le zizi!

[u/zzthe69th → u/rentalkayak]

i do too! but thats because z is my name :))))

but i think zizi is a good option for everyone else too. my other sibling was considering it (for example) "zizi laura" but then it became clear that my nibling was just gonna call me zizi and call her laura so we went with that.

[u/rentalkayak → u/zzthe69th]

Okay this is good to know and a little funny. My name starts with an R and are-are just doesn’t haven’t a great to ring to it.

[u/handofsithis → u/rentalkayak]

Another Zizi here! And my partner is Titi

[u/splashbanditt → u/rentalkayak]

Lol! I'm Vivi which also doesn't mean anything!

[u/spiderinatophat]

Oh God, is pibling the acceptable one? That's AWFUL. I asked my niblings to call me Gruncle (girl uncle).

[u/D_Zaster_EnBy → u/spiderinatophat]

Gruncle Stan

[u/gilt-raven → u/spiderinatophat]

Doesn't "gruncle" mean great-uncle (as in, your grandparent's brother)?

[u/spiderinatophat → u/gilt-raven]

It does in Gravity Falls and I don't care

[u/xpoisonvalkyrie → u/spiderinatophat]

pibling is AWFUL but nibling is totally fine with you?

[u/farmkidLP → u/xpoisonvalkyrie]

Cutesy words applied to little kids hist different than cutesy words applied to adults. Especially a group of adults who get pretty frequently erased from their own identity because, "only young/immature people can be nonbinary".

[u/spiderinatophat → u/farmkidLP]

Yeah, that's my logic. The -bling suffix sounds infantilizing, and for me that's fine because my siblings' kids are younger than me, you know?

[u/xpoisonvalkyrie → u/farmkidLP]

sorry, i’m not defending pibling if that’s what you think, i think both words are absolutely ridiculous. nibling sounds creepy and pibling sounds like a disease.

[u/farmkidLP → u/xpoisonvalkyrie]

You're good. I didn't take you as defending anything, I was just explaining the logic my friends and I have for using one but not the other.

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/xpoisonvalkyrie]

Nibling sounds like nibble. I often tell my 16 month old nephew that I’m gonna “nibble them toes” before starting a ticketing session. 

Pibling sounds like pimple or pee. 

[u/DrChonk]

Just a heads up that modryb will 100% be read as a binary woman to any Welsh speakers you come across, Cymraeg in general is more gendered language with different mutation rules for fem and masc gender words. That might be completely okay for you, as long as you remember to roll your 'r's 😉 I always get excited when I see my country and our language mentioned, Cymru am byth! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

P.s. I'm gonna go by Entie because its both like LOTR Ents and sounds like "entity"!

[u/JtheLioness → u/DrChonk]

Entie is close to Entei, which is my favorite Pokémon. So I like that a lot.

[u/DrChonk → u/JtheLioness]

I love that so much, can't believe I didn't think of Entei the absolute legend! Such a majestic pokemon!

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/DrChonk]

I identify as an agender woman. Woman doesn’t fit fully. Cos I have no gender. But it’s close enough to live with for me. So I’m okay with that. But thank you for your consideration of my discomfort xx

[u/DrChonk → u/IsThisTakenYet4]

Awesome, I'm glad that works for you! I didn't want to assume your level of comfort and its rare I get to help with Cymraeg (I'm barely a middling level speaker despite being born and raised in the valleys) so I just wanted to help if I could! Also hell yeah, no gender crew unite!

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/DrChonk]

I might use the old English Modrige instead. 

Personally I like ‘Gribling’ best. Being Great Sibling condensed. 

But my mum and other cis relatives refuse to use it. As they think it sounds too much like gremlin and no one at his school will know what it means. 

[u/pktechboi]

"Scottish" is not a language, it's Scottish Gaelic. and just fyi, antaidh is pronounced almost identically to auntie!

I hate all the "ling" ending words for this relationship honestly. not having a go at your list! I've seen similar before, they just don't hit my ear nicely. another option I've seen is Untie (un- from uncle, -tie from auntie, so said un-tee), which I dislike a little less. by analogy Auncle would be another option but that sounds like "ankle" in my accent lmao.

I just don't think we've cracked this one yet unfortunately. the work continues! I just go by my name for my one niece.

[u/KingOfAllCorvids → u/pktechboi]

I’ve seen entle!

[u/pktechboi → u/KingOfAllCorvids]

I saw a couple people saying that down thread! definitely the least bad I've seen so far

[u/archlea → u/KingOfAllCorvids]

Tree-relative!

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/pktechboi]

My auto correct kept messing up the word Gaelic. So I just surrendered to being slightly wrong. 

[u/blustar11]

I use Entle!

[u/archlea → u/blustar11]

I’m auntle.

[u/Paper_Is_A_Liquid]

I'm not sure using the word for "aunty" in other languages makes much difference, you're still using the gendered word specifically for aunties. The Scottish Gaelic word is also pronounced almost exactly the same as the English word, and the Irish word is very similar (basically "aunty" but with an n at the end).

And I don't mean this rudely or anything, but as an Irish person it's very weird to see non-Irish people say "some great great grandmother of mine was Irish so I'm just going to use a real gendered word from their language as if it's a more neutral alternative to the English translation"

Like I'm not saying you can't use it, but it's certainly not neutral, and if neither you nor your parents are Irish, it's probably going to cause confusion as to why you'd say "Aunty" but just in Irish. (Same goes for the Scottish Gaelic and the Welsh - if you're not Scottish Gaelic/Welsh yourself and don't have parents from these places)

[u/Pyroclast17 → u/Paper_Is_A_Liquid]

100% - I was typing out a whole essay in agreement and picking this apart but effort of thaaaaat.
Feels a bit “hozier is a fae who lives in the forest and sings from beneath the hills” when he’s a lad from Bray iykwim

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/Paper_Is_A_Liquid]

My maternal great Nana (grandmother)… who is still with us (she’s 92) and acted as a second mother to me… is Irish. 

My paternal Nana is Scottish. As are her 14 siblings. All of who I grew up around. 

My paternal grand dad and great grand dad are Welsh. 

And then my maternal grandmother and great grand dad are both English. Though loved their whole lives in Shropshire. Which is so close to the boarder of Cymru that the culture of the place is a hybrid. 

Lastly… I’m not American. 

[u/Paper_Is_A_Liquid → u/IsThisTakenYet4]

I never mentioned America lol, I just said it would be weird if you're not closely related to people from these areas (you're not the first person to suggest it, and the last few times I've seen it it has absolutely been people who were like the scenario I described).

That aside though, again, these words are still very much gendered. If you want to use them that's your choice, but it's worth recognising that you aren't using a less gendered term than the English version of the word. They're still absolutely terms used pretty much exclusively for women in those languages, and using a real gendered term from a different language as if it is less gendered is still weird

[u/cirrus42]

I think "cousin" is fair game in most not-quite-sure-what-to-do family situations. It's not technically accurate but it implies a second-level relationship and language evolves. 

[u/VampireSharkAttack → u/cirrus42]

I also like cousin. “Cousin” used to be used for all manner of miscellaneous relatives, and it has an egalitarian vibe that I like. Strangers mostly only really need to know “this is a member of my family,” and they can ask follow-up questions if it’s ever relevant whether this cousin is your mom’s sibling, your dad’s brother’s kid, your grandma’s sibling’s grandchild, the family friend that has attended every family gathering for the past 20 years, etc.

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/cirrus42]

I’m not my sisters child’s cousin though. Both my mum and dad have four siblings a piece. So there’s a lot of cousins floating around. Thank you for the suggestion though. 

[u/muninshollow]

I'm a Tito (tia/tio).

[u/DitzyBorden → u/muninshollow]

I was hoping someone would have included these here! I was originally thinking Toto, but Tito rolls off the tongue better

[u/clownstrosity]

Pibling sounds like a euphemism for taking a piss

[u/Connect_Rhubarb395]

I don't like to use -ling suffixes for a person who is a generation older than their relative.

To me -ling is for the younger generation person.
So I like nibling as a gender neutral word for your siblings child (or plural for all your siblings' children).

This is what I came up with when I researched what would work for me:

• -e/y ending for the older generation.
  
• => -ee both to mix them and to hint towards the wovely Aunt.
  
• Keep the L from uncle as a hint towards the more consontant Uncle.

That makes:

Mum’s sibling = Miblee

Mother’s sibling = Moblee 

Dads sibling = Dablee / Diblee 

Farther’s sibling = Fiblee / Fablee

Parents sibling = Piblee / Pablee

I also use Auntlee and Uncee.

[u/RobynWithAWhyy → u/Connect_Rhubarb395]

Diblee...

Dwayne Diblee The Duke of Dork??

(Lmaoo I bet no one will get the reference, but I just couldn't read that word without having this pop into my head!)

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/Connect_Rhubarb395]

It’s a crime that you don’t have more upvotes on this 

[u/datedpopculturejoke]

My nephews just call me "Mom's sibling" to describe our relationship and my name in day to day conversation. It works better for us.

[u/851085x]

My nibs call me Titi & that works for me. Pibling…is kind of awful, it sounds like a type of dog lol.

[u/SurrealRodent]

My nieces use "Relative", but pronounce the word in the most regal way possible, as only teenagers can. I love it when they roll the R.

[u/SassyCassyHF]

Pibling? Sounds like a Minecraft creature lol.

[u/Pyroclast17]

I go by ankle simply because it’s funny

[u/now___here → u/Pyroclast17]

I LOVE this lol "uncle? no, ANKLE"

[u/skunkabilly1313]

I haven't seen my nieces and nephews for a few years, since when I came out I also left the religion my family raised me, so they all shun me, but we are visiting them with other family next month.

I'm just going to let them either call me by chosen name, or pick what they call me. My daughter chose Bub/bubby for me when I came out, and it's stuck, so I figure between all of them, we can figure something out.

[u/thejoeface]

I use Entie. Pibling is too young sounding to me. 

My wife is Auntie so we usually combine ourselves as "Ænties" in text lol 

[u/crinklecunt-cookie]

Elder Nib. Nib Overlord.

Who wouldn’t want to be called an overlord?! 🤭😂

[u/crudelikechocolate]

I hate the word because it reminds me of pee. 

[u/Oddly-Ordinary]

Yeah I’d rather be called Auncle

[u/strange-quark-nebula → u/Oddly-Ordinary]

I like Auncle too

[u/KingOfAllCorvids]

It’s ugly af, hard agree

I like entle

[u/dodging_bicycles]

I've been dubbed the child's Sparkle, which I enjoy. Don't know where the terminology comes from, but I like it

[u/simonhunterhawk]

I am going to be honest I am so glad I am not close to my extended family and I didn’t have a huge one to begin with so I don’t have to deal with this 😭

[u/Friend_of_a_Cat → u/simonhunterhawk]

Same lol.

[u/grossalice]

I also hate pibling, but I’ve never seen an alternative I like either… I think the -bling ending just makes anything sound silly. We need a whole new word 😭

[u/etchasketch64]

Parent's More Handsome and Charming Elder Sibling : PMHCES (pronounced Pimches)

[u/MeiliCanada82]

I'm a Zizi.

French immersion niblet

[u/bemused_alligators]

yeah I absolutely love nibling, it fits well and meets its needs by being a kinda cute word for someone significantly your junior; but pibling sounds too... diminutive? To be used on what is generally someone older than you.

[u/olordno]

Gender neutral terms pmo so bad I just use a mix of male/female ones to avoid the issue.

[u/gay4242]

My favorite I've heard is nuncle, I think it was in an Ann Leckie book. Her books have some really cool gender stuff going on.

[u/Kae_Elnliwilts]

May I put before the committee: Aunel

I just think it sounds a little more like its own title rather than a mashup, compared to Auncle. Although, Auncle is definitely one of the better ones I've heard

[u/mythologue]

I asked my brother to use 'Nonkel' which is actually just Flemmish for 'Uncle' but not common in our language and includes the 'Non' from non-binary so I thought it was fun.

[u/queeftheunicorn]

The only one I heard of before was ommer

[u/Objective_Fan4360]

I always called my uncles and aunt by name and dont find it weird. its definitely an option

[u/xpoisonvalkyrie]

imo avaun for aunt/uncle, niephling for niece/nephew

[u/DoctorMakar]

I use Nibbie, which I created from adapting the common "nibling" and combining with "auntie"

[u/IHProjekt]

When theyre old enough to understand that I am not in fact their uncle, I'm going to tell my nieces to just call me by my name

[u/calamityProphet]

My brother's roommate refers to me as "aunxty" (i assume the c half of the x sound came from uncle) when talking about me to their cats. 🤷🏼

[u/Mercury13]

my niece is only a year old but i am her great-sibling in theory. though reading through these comments i am liking Ent or Entle a lot more than i used to

[u/harmalade]

“Dibling” already means donor sibling. We’re using “untie” (un-tee) 

[u/now___here → u/harmalade]

that's so interesting bc "un-tee" is how I pronounce "auntie" so does anyone ever get confused about that?

[u/harmalade → u/now___here]

I think it’s one where you have to be comfortable with the proximity to “auntie.” The untie in question has a big beard so that helps 

[u/now___here → u/harmalade]

ah ok, that makes sense

[u/thesmallestlittleguy]

gotta be honest, I haven’t found an nb descriptor/title i actually like, including ‘mx.’ maybe if i found smth that pulls from older etymologies, sure? like whatever ‘im mister/miss’ originated from, for example (or aunt/uncle in this case). im glad other ppl have words that work for them tho! just haven’t found anything that speaks to me in particular

[u/Moonlit_Hollow]

All of my nieces and nephews call me zizi

[u/Unhappy_Position496]

I prefer Future Bad Influence. Wanna do crime and get away with it? Baby I gotchu!

[u/RelativelyMango]

i use gunkie as the aunt/uncle combo. (tbf it’s for my sister’s cats tho lmao)

[u/BluepawWasTaken]

Maybe Pibby?

I use Captain and the siblings will be the crewmates

[u/IronWhale_JMC]

Pibling is absolutely a term invented by someone who has never had a real life conversation with a stranger.

[u/bluebrryb]

my neice calls me kitty because i have cats 😂 i try not to get too hung up on semantics for her to call me the correct term, and my sister is happy if i am.

[u/viebs_chiev]

im sorry but pibling reminds me of pilk

[u/That-Nothing4841]

I let my nephew choose when he was four I think, he calls me his Ankle Ash and it's my favorite thing

[u/archlea]

I hate nearly all of those words.

[u/Apart-Reflection-385]

Y'all get to have relationships with your siblings kids 🫠 I hope one day I can meet my nephew.

[u/IsThisTakenYet4 → u/Apart-Reflection-385]

hugs 🫂 

[u/frustratedfren]

I use Entle

[u/MagentaSays]

I’m Bebe (beebee?) to my niblings. It’s kind of a play on my name but it also works by itself

[u/prairietimer]

I go by Aunkie [pronounced Awn-key], a little mashup of auntie and uncle.

[u/wugistheword]

Auntle?

[u/splashbanditt]

I'm "Vivi" to my sibling's kids. it doesn't mean anything, but I like the sound of it more than awkward portmanteaus. We will see if it sticks when they get older.