Michael Peter Balzary was born on October 16, 1962 in the Melbourne suburb of Mount Waverley, Victoria. He is of Hungarian and Irish descent. His father, Mick Balzary, an avid fisherman, often took him fishing.[4] When Flea was five, his family moved to Larchmont, New York for his father's career.[5] In 1971, his parents divorced and his father returned to Australia. Flea and his siblings stayed with their mother Patricia, who soon remarried to a jazz musician.[5] He was first called "Flea" as a child for his seeming inability to sit still, and the nickname stuck ever since.[6]