In Regency England, the terms used for parents differed based on your social class, region, and age (and thus could reveal your roots).

In the drawing rooms of the elite, children often said “Mamma” and “Papa”, while servants might address the lady of the house as “Ma’am” or “Mum.” In the North, you’d hear “Mam” and “Da,” while in London’s poorer districts, “Ma” and “Pa” were common.

The original form is “Mamma,” seen in written form in 1579, and eventually altered to one m for “Mama” in 1729, although both versions were still used.

Mum wasn’t used until 1823, and mummy not until 1839, both being used primarily by children, although “Mammy” and “Mam” were also popular amongst children from about 1523 onward. “Mam” is more popular in the North and in Wales, rarely heard elsewhere.

The use of Ma wasn’t until 1829, and then only by lower classes, not a term anyone of the upper crest would have used. Pa was the same, but used earlier, from 1811.

Both Papa (1670) and Mamma (or Mama) are pronounced with the stress on the final vowel, and both were used by the upper crest. Granted, for direct address, boys would more than likely address their father as “Sir.”

Mater and the Pater cropped up in the mid-19th century but were never used to directly address parents, rather to talk about them, terms that were seen most often in public school.

Fun Fact: Upper-class children might be corrected if they said “mother” instead of “mamma”—too stiff! But servants addressing a lady might say “Ma’am” or even “Mum” depending on accent.

Note: This fast fact is brought to you by Lynn Pollard, a researching genius from one of my Regency research groups. She painstakingly dug through her many dictionaries (OED, Partridge, Collins, etc.) to trace the history of each of these terms. I can’t thank her enough!

If you're looking to read more, check out these references:

• Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

  
  

  The gold standard for historical word origins. The entries for “mother,” “mama,” “mum,” and “mammy” offer citations, regional usages, and timelines.

  
  

  → https://www.oed.com/ (subscription needed, but many libraries offer free access)

  
  

• Chambers Dictionary of Etymology

  
  

  A great alternative to OED, with clear summaries of parent-name origins. Covers “mama,” “papa,” “mum,” and more.

  
  

• Eric Partridge’s Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English

  
  

  Perfect for quick reference. Excellent on dialectal and regional shifts, especially with British terms like “mum” and “mam.”

  
  

• Collins English Dictionary (Word Origins Section)

  
  

  Shorter entries than OED but great for general readers. Their online edition is free and includes etymological notes.

  
  

• Online Etymology Dictionary

  
  

  Free, user-friendly, and quite accurate for broad overviews. Entries for “mother,” “mama,” and “mum” include historic usage.

  
  

  → https://www.etymonline.com/