Berdie
Feminine · “Bright”
The siege gun called Big Bertha was named after the woman who owned the works. Bertha Krupp inherited the largest arms company in Europe outright as a teenager, ran it as sole proprietor through two wars, and the gunners named the howitzer after her.
How old is the name Berdie?
Berdie first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Berdie alive today was born around 1920, making them about 105 years old. About 200 people named Berdie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Berdie most popular?
Berdie peaked in 1881, reaching #623 nationally. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Berhta to Berdie
The story of Berdie
Golf took birdie from an American slang word for anything excellent, and then had to find bigger birds. A bird of a shot was simply a fine one; a club in New Jersey formalized it for a hole in one under par and the term spread. Once it was fixed, two under needed a name and got eagle, three under got albatross in Britain and double eagle in America, and four under, which almost never happens, is a condor. The whole ornithological ladder rests on a piece of nineteenth-century slang that meant nothing more specific than good.
Meaningscholars disagree
Bright
If the name shortens Bertha, the Germanic element behind it means bright or famous and stands at the end of Herbert and Albert. If it is the word birdie with a different vowel letter, it means what it says. English gives both spellings the same sound, so the record cannot distinguish them.
How the name formed
- Berhta
- Bertha
- Berdie
Pronouncing Berdie
BUR-dee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. English long ago collapsed the vowels written er, ir and ur into one sound before an r, which is why this name and the word for a small bird are said identically.
Nicknames for Berdie
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 191929 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #623reached in 1881
- Change vs 1959
- +60.0%8 in 1960, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Berdies among us
people named Berdie are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Berdie sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Short, warm and impossible to mispronounce.
- It has been in the American record since the records began.
- The bird reading gives a child something concrete whatever the origin was.
- It is heard as Birdie, which is a nickname rather than a name to most people.
- The origin is genuinely uncertain, so the meaning cannot be stated flatly.
- It belongs to the oldest layer of the American record and reads that way.
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Berdie
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Berdies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Berdie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Berdie in 2025?
- Berdie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Berdie with classmates?
- Berdie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Barbara#968 · Betty#1113 · Brenda#1525 · Beverly#1016 · Brittany#928 · Bonnie#396 · Brianna#222 · Bertha#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Berdie? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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