Michael “Monty” Widenius is a Finnish software developer best known as the principal creator of MySQL. MySQL’s own manual records that the database is named after Widenius’s daughter, My, reflecting his central role in its design. He led the original development at the Swedish company TcX together with David Axmark.
The MariaDB Foundation describes Widenius as the “Founder of MariaDB and MySQL” and “one of the original developers of MySQL.” After Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems brought MySQL under the control of its largest proprietary competitor, Widenius started MariaDB as a community-developed, drop-in replacement intended to keep the code free and open.
His databases follow a personal naming convention: MySQL is named after his daughter My, and MariaDB after another daughter, Maria. Through MariaDB and the MariaDB Foundation he has continued to advocate for keeping open-source databases free and independent of any single commercial owner.