The definite article "the" suggests that "Mi'kmaq" is the undeclined form indicated by the initial letter "m". When declined in the singular it reduces to the following forms: nikmaq - my family; kikmaq - your family; wikma - his/her family. The variant form ''Mi'kmaw'' plays two grammatical roles: 1) It is the singular of Mi'kmaq and 2) it is an adjective in circumstances where it precedes a noun (e.g. mi'kmaw people, mi'kmaw treaties, mi'kmaw person, etc.)〔''Mi'kmaw Resource Guide'', Eastern Woodlands Publishing (1997)〕

The name "Micmac" was first recorded in a memoir by de La Chesnaye in 1676. Professor Ganong in a footnote to the word ''megamingo'' (earth), as used by Marc Lescarbot, remarked "that it is altogether probable that in this word lies the origin of the name Micmac." As suggested in this paper on the customs and beliefs of the Micmacs, it would seem that ''megumaagee'' the name used by the Micmacs, or the ''Megumawaach'', as they called themselves, for their land, is from the words ''megwaak'', "red", and ''magumegek'', "on the earth", or as Rand recorded, "red on the earth," ''megakumegek'', "red ground," "red earth." The Micmacs, then, must have thought of themselves as the Red Earth People, or the People of the Red Earth. Others seeking a meaning for the word Micmac have suggested that it is from ''nigumaach'', my brother, my friend, a word that was also used as a term of endearment by a husband for his wife... Still another explanation for the word Micmac suggested by Stansbury Hagar in "Micmac Magic and Medicine" is that the word ''megumawaach'' is from ''megumoowesoo'', the name of the Micmacs' legendary master magicians, from whom the earliest Micmac wizards are said to have received their power.〔cited in Paul to Marion Robertson, ''Red Earth: Tales of the Micmac, with an introduction to their customs and beliefs'' (1965) p. 5.〕