Cepolinae is one of two subfamilies of marine ray-finned fish belonging to family Cepolidae, the bandfishes.

Cepolinae was named by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque as the family Cepolidae.

It is likely derived from cepollam or cepulam, which in 1686 was said by Francis Willughby to be local names among Roman fishermen for the similar "Fierasfer", a pearlfish, to which Linnaeus believed Cepola macrophthalma was related.

As well as this, in 1872 Giovanni Canestrini reported that in Naples the common name for C. macropthalma is Pesce cipolia meaning “onion fish”.

[6] [5] They live over soft bottoms of sand and mud, burrowing into the substrate and feed on zooplankton.