The genus Ichthyaetus is from ikhthus, "fish", and aetos, "eagle", and the specific melanocephalus is from melas, "black", and -kephalos "-headed".

The non breeding adult is similar but the hood is reduced to an extensive dusky "bandit" mask through the eye.

Formerly restricted to the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean this species has now expanded over most of Europe as far as Great Britain and Ireland, with 37 sites: 543–592 pairs in the United Kingdom in 2008,[4] breeding in Scotland for the first time in 2023.

Breeding has also occurred in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Balkans.

The Mediterranean gull's feeding habits are much an opportunistic omnivore, eating fish, worms, insects, eggs, young birds, offal and carrion.