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 common dolphin is not the dolphin of popular imagination despite its name; that distinction belongs to the bottlenose dolphin due to its widespread use in marine parks and its appearance in the television series Flipper.