Polly is the name English speakers treat as a typical parrot’s name. If you picture a parrot talking, you can almost hear “Pretty Polly” — that is the line people have taught birds, and the line old poems, toys, and cartoons kept repeating. Children in English-speaking countries grew up with it, so the name on a parrot can feel like a joke everyone already knows. Though actually, Polly is also a real person’s name. It began as a pet form of Mary, by rhyming with Molly, which is another pet form of Mary. So a woman can be Polly, and a parrot can be Polly, from the same nickname. When someone says “Pretty Polly,” they almost always mean the bird, not a girl in the room.