Birdie is an English nickname that simply means "little bird" and was a popular pet name for Bertha, Elizabeth and Alberta in the 1880s and 1890s. Its return a century later follows the same vintage-nickname wave as Hattie, Goldie and Mabel, and golfers know it as a score of one under par. In the United States Birdie was number 2745 in 2015, entered the top 1000 in 2021 and has risen to 670 in 2025, its best rank in modern times.