MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. According to MySQL’s own manual history, the developers initially set out to use the existing mSQL database to connect to their own fast low-level (ISAM) tables, but found mSQL “was not fast enough or flexible enough” for their needs. They built a new SQL interface with an API deliberately kept similar to mSQL so existing code could be ported with little change.
The same official history records that the database is named MySQL after co-founder Monty Widenius’s daughter, My. (The dolphin in the logo, “Sakila,” was later chosen from a public “Name the Dolphin” contest.) Development was led by Widenius and David Axmark at the Swedish company TcX, and the first versions date from 1995.
MySQL became one of the defining tools of the early dynamic web. With Linux, the Apache web server, and PHP or Perl, it formed the LAMP stack, the common open-source foundation that ran a large share of the web’s database-backed sites. Its speed, simplicity, and free licensing made it the default choice for web developers who could not afford or did not want a proprietary database.
The company behind it, MySQL AB, was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, and Sun was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010, which is how MySQL came to be owned by the maker of the leading proprietary relational database. That ownership change prompted Widenius to fork the code into MariaDB.