Nearly 20 years after their first break up, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez reunited. In their years apart, both Affleck and Lopez married other people and had children. They changed in many ways. Because of this, Affleck wasn’t sure the nickname he used for Lopez during their first romance was applicable. He ended up beginning to use it again.

Ben Affleck started to use the same nickname he gave Jennifer Lopez in the early 2000s

In the early 2000s, when Lopez and Affleck first began dating, he started referring to her as “Little.” She is five foot five, and he stands nearly a foot taller than her. When they reunited in 2021, Affleck wasn’t sure if the nickname still applied. While their heights hadn’t changed, Lopez had grown a great deal in their time apart.

“You come out the other side, and you’re better, you’re stronger, you’re good on your own,” she told Vogue in 2022. “But there’s a little piece of that former self that was totally open, innocent, and unafraid, that is gone. Sometimes I mourn that, because I’m such a romantic. And because I loved that person so much.”

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez | Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Still, Affleck resumed referring to Lopez as “Little.” She was likely happy for this, given the fondness with which she looks back on that version of herself.

“My whole life, my whole music career was just about love: every movie I picked, every album I made,” she said. “Even though I’m super proud of who I am today, and I wouldn’t change a f***ing thing — and I can finally say that, as a human being, as a woman, as a partner, as a wife, as a coworker, as a mother and stepmom — there’s just that little piece where you feel like, That old me? She was sweet.”

Ben Affleck said Jennifer Lopez retained the trait he initially fell in love with

Part of the reason Affleck may have felt comfortable using the old nickname on Lopez was that, in some ways, she hadn’t changed. He said the traits he fell in love with were still present in her.

“There is something innately, magically kind and good and full of love at the heart of who Jennifer is,” he said. “That’s exactly the person I remember from 20 years ago. Maybe she sees all the changes she’s made, whereas when I see her, mostly I just see someone who has retained, against the odds, the thing about her that always made her the most incredible to me: a heart that seems boundless with love. She is my idea of the kind of person I want to be.”

Who coined the term ‘Bennifer’?

While Affleck has his own nickname for Lopez, as a collective, the couple is often referred to as “Bennifer.” According to Kevin Smith, who directed the couple in the film Jersey Girl, he’s the one who first coined the moniker.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez | Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images

“‘Bennifer’ is trending. It’s a name I first gave the kids during ‘Jersey Girl’ pre-production, before the world found out they were dating,” he tweeted (via Business Insider). He added, “I’d later drop the name in an interview with the @nytimes. Shortly thereafter, it appeared in the article and then entered the vernacular.”

The name stuck, and people began to use it again when the couple rekindled their romance.