Budgie Names

What’s in a name? Quite a lot when it comes to budgies. The bird’s scientific tag is Melopsittacus undulates, the first bit meaning ‘melodious parrot’, and the second referring to the undulating flight of a budgie flock. They’re known more formally as budgerigars, and in the USA they are often called common pet parakeet, parakeet budgerigar, plain ‘parakeet’, or the shortened form ‘keet’. This can be confusing in the UK, where the word ‘parakeet’ applies to various species of small to medium-sized parrot, but not budgies. In Australia, birds bred from wild stock, rather than from existing pet birds, are called shell parakeets, to differentiate them from their captive-bred cousins.

The budgie - one bird, many names!

Other, less common names for the bird include canary parakeet, warbling canary parrot, grass parakeet, warbling grass parakeet (John Gould’s preferred name for them), zebra parrot, scallop parrot, and the wonderfully unimaginative flight bird. In their native Australia the name budgerigar has various forms in the native tongues of that continent, including betcherrygah, budgerygah and gidjirrigaa.

Budgie in Other Languages

If you know of any translations not included in the following list, let us know!

• Africaans: Budjie
• Alemannic German: Wällesittich
• Albanian: lloj papagalli
• Arabic: الطائر الطيب
• Basque: Perikito
• Belarusian: Хвалісты папугай
• Bulgarian: Вълнист папагал
• Catalan: Periquito
• Chinese: 虎皮鸚鵡
• Croatian: Tigrica/papigica
• Czech: Andulka/Andulka vlnkovaná
• Danish: Undulat
• Dutch: Grasparkiet
• Estonian: Viirpapagoi
• Filippino: Maikling loro
• Finnish (Suomi): Undulaatti
• Flemish: Grasparkiet
• French: Perruche Ondulée
• Gaelic (Irish): Pearaicít Astrálach
• Gaelic (Scots): Buidsidh
• Galician: Periquito
• Georgian: ხუჭუჭა თუთიყუშ (Khuchucha t’ut’iqushi)
• German: Wellensittich
• Greek: παπαγαλάκι
• Gujarati: ઑસ્ટ્રેલિયન પોપટ
• Haitian Creole: Peruch
• Hebrew: תוּכִּי קָטָן
• Hindi: पशु
• Hungarian: Hullámos papagáj/törpepapagáj
• Icelandic: Gári
• Ido: Perucho
• Indonesian: Burung kesturi
• Italian: Pappagallino ondulato
• Japanese : セキセイインコ
• Kazakh: Бұйра тоты
• Korean: 잉꼬 (ingkko)
• Latvian: Pundurpapagailis
• Lithuanian: Banguotoji papūgėlė
• Macedonian: Тигрица (птица)
• Malay: Budgerigar
• Navajo (Diné bizaad): Tsídii yáłtiʼí yázhí
• Norwegian: Undulat
• Persian: مرغ عشق
• Polish: Papużka falista
• Portuguese: Periquito-australiano
• Punjabi (Western): بجریگر
• Romanian: Peruş
• Russian: Волнистый попугайчик
• Sami: Unduláhtta
• Serbian: Аустралијска тигрица (Tigrica)
• Slovak: Papagájec/Andulka
• Slovenian: Skôbčevka
• Spanish: Periquito
• Swedish: Undulat
• Tagalog: Budgerigar
• Telugu: మెలోప్సిట్టాసిని
• Thai: นกหงส์หยก
• Turkish: Muhabbet kuşu
• Ukrainian: Хвилястий папужка
• Urdu: بجریگر
• Vietnamese: Vẹt yến phụng
• Welsh: Bwji
• Western Mari: Коэлӓ пынан попугайчик