The original name was Mocha (for the town) Dick and Melville changed it to Moby and no one knows why
Perhaps he didn't like calling a white whale "Mocha"?
I believe Melville's wife's cousin was on board the USN bark whose attempted mutiny was the basis for "Billy Budd".
The leader of the attempted mutiny was the ne'er-do-well rakish son of the Sec O' War at the time, and was also a suspect in the death of Mary Rogers, whose "body" was discovered about the time he left on that Africa patrol.
Mary Rogers was the real life victim of EA Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget". Poe knew Rogers as a customer of the tobacco shop where she worked as a sales clerk. Rogers most likely died during an abortion, not her first, btw.
I always thought that Moby Dick is a social disease.
;^)