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The title Monty Python's Flying Circus was partly the result of the group's reputation at the BBC. Michael Mills, BBC's Head of Comedy, wanted their name to include the word "circus" because the BBC referred to the six members wandering around the building as a circus, in particular "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus", after Barry Took, who had brought them to the BBC. The group added "flying" to make it sound less like an actual circus and more like something from World War I. The group was coming up with their name at a time when the 1966 Royal Guardsmen song Snoopy vs. the Red Baron had been at a peak. Manfred von Richthofen, the WWI German flying ace known as The Red Baron, commanded a squadron of planes known as "The Flying Circus." The words "Monty Python" were added because they claimed it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, the sort of person who would have brought them together, with John Cleese suggesting "Python" as something slimy & slithery, and Eric Idle suggesting "Monty". They later explained that the name Monty "...made us laugh because Monty to us means Lord Montgomery, our great general of the Second World War".

The BBC had rejected some other names put forward by the group including "Whither Canada?", "The Nose Show", "Ow! It's Colin Plint!", "A Horse, a Spoon and a Basin", "The Toad Elevating Moment" and "Owl Stretching Time". Several of these titles were later used for individual episodes.