Well Mint is based on Ubuntu (unless you get the Debian Edition) and Ubuntu is based on Debian sooo...
Basically the majority of Linux distros are based on either Debian, Fedora or Arch. IMHO it's usually best to go with one of the originals, not the derivatives. Although I will admit Ubuntu has made Debian a lot better over the years, but that's only because they took the bits from Ubuntu that actually made sense and ignored the rest.