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.
Some of it is personality. I call my wife by the short form of her name but I do that with pretty much everybody but she calls me by various things but she does that with everyone. Like she will call other women honey, hun, sugar, sweety, etc. So we both refer to each other the same way we do others.