Derived from an old diminutive of MARTIN. MAXWELL Scottish. From a place name meaning Mack's stream, from the name Mack, a short form of the Scandinavian name MAGNUS, combined with Old English wella stream ...
For the ray-finned fish known as common dolphin, see Mahi-mahi. The common dolphin is the name given to two species (and possibly a third) of dolphin making up the genus Delphinus. Prior to the mid-1990s, most taxonomists only recognised one species in this genus, the common dolphin Delphinus delphis.
The teeth of bottlenosed dolphins are flattened at the tips, which caused them to be placed in the genus Tursio, but because Tursio is a synonym of Physeter, the genus name was changed to Tursiops. Tursio in Latin means dolphin, and the suffix-ops means appearance, hence the name, Tursiops.