diff --git a/Documentation/git-cvsimport.txt b/Documentation/git-cvsimport.txt
index 6f91b9ea2a..58eefd42e5 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-cvsimport.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cvsimport.txt
@@ -102,13 +102,17 @@ If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
 
 -m::
 	Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option
-	will enable default regexes that try to capture the name source
+	will enable default regexes that try to capture the source
 	branch name from the commit message.
 
 -M <regex>::
 	Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom
 	regex. It can be used with '-m' to enable the default regexes
 	as well. You must escape forward slashes.
++
+The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
++
+This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
 
 -S <regex>::
 	Skip paths matching the regex.
diff --git a/git-cvsimport.perl b/git-cvsimport.perl
index 9516242338..47f116f37e 100755
--- a/git-cvsimport.perl
+++ b/git-cvsimport.perl
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 
 use strict;
 use warnings;
-use Getopt::Std;
+use Getopt::Long;
 use File::Spec;
 use File::Temp qw(tempfile tmpnam);
 use File::Path qw(mkpath);
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ use IPC::Open2;
 $SIG{'PIPE'}="IGNORE";
 $ENV{'TZ'}="UTC";
 
-our ($opt_h,$opt_o,$opt_v,$opt_k,$opt_u,$opt_d,$opt_p,$opt_C,$opt_z,$opt_i,$opt_P, $opt_s,$opt_m,$opt_M,$opt_A,$opt_S,$opt_L, $opt_a, $opt_r);
+our ($opt_h,$opt_o,$opt_v,$opt_k,$opt_u,$opt_d,$opt_p,$opt_C,$opt_z,$opt_i,$opt_P, $opt_s,$opt_m,@opt_M,$opt_A,$opt_S,$opt_L, $opt_a, $opt_r);
 my (%conv_author_name, %conv_author_email);
 
 sub usage(;$) {
@@ -112,7 +112,12 @@ sub read_repo_config {
 
 my $opts = "haivmkuo:d:p:r:C:z:s:M:P:A:S:L:";
 read_repo_config($opts);
-getopts($opts) or usage();
+Getopt::Long::Configure( 'no_ignore_case', 'bundling' );
+
+# turn the Getopt::Std specification in a Getopt::Long one,
+# with support for multiple -M options
+GetOptions( map { s/:/=s/; /M/ ? "$_\@" : $_ } split( /(?!:)/, $opts ) )
+    or usage();
 usage if $opt_h;
 
 if (@ARGV == 0) {
@@ -164,10 +169,10 @@ if ($#ARGV == 0) {
 
 our @mergerx = ();
 if ($opt_m) {
-	@mergerx = ( qr/\b(?:from|of|merge|merging|merged) (\w+)/i );
+	@mergerx = ( qr/\b(?:from|of|merge|merging|merged) ([-\w]+)/i );
 }
-if ($opt_M) {
-	push (@mergerx, qr/$opt_M/);
+if (@opt_M) {
+	push (@mergerx, map { qr/$_/ } @opt_M);
 }
 
 # Remember UTC of our starting time