This is a Male House Finch, seen at Delta Ponds. I don't know where they got the name, but I don't think you would invite them to live in your house. :) On the other hand, you can easily draw them to your backyard feeder!

Information about the House Finch:

•House Finches frequent city parks, backyards, urban centers, farms, and forest edges
•The House Finch was originally found in the western United States and Mexico. In 1940 a small number of finches were turned loose on Long Island, New York, after failed attempts to sell them as cage birds (“Hollywood finches”). They quickly started breeding and spread across almost all of the eastern United States and southern Canada within the next 50 years.

•The oldest known House Finch was a female, and at least 11 years, 7 months old when she was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in New York in 1985, the same state where she had been banded in 1973.

See 'All About Birds'