diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.23.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.23.0.txt
index ca625f492b61f..54dba831f7216 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.23.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.23.0.txt
@@ -667,6 +667,7 @@ Reshaping
 - Bug in :func:`DataFrame.stack`, :func:`DataFrame.unstack`, :func:`Series.unstack` which were not returning subclasses (:issue:`15563`)
 - Bug in timezone comparisons, manifesting as a conversion of the index to UTC in ``.concat()`` (:issue:`18523`)
 - Bug in :func:`concat` when concatting sparse and dense series it returns only a ``SparseDataFrame``. Should be a ``DataFrame``. (:issue:`18914`, :issue:`18686`, and :issue:`16874`)
+- Improved error message for :func:`DataFrame.merge` when there is no common merge key (:issue:`19427`)
 -
 
 
diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 201d8ba427c8a..3d1983f65d70d 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -233,7 +233,7 @@
 --------
 merge_ordered
 merge_asof
-
+DataFrame.join
 """
 
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/pandas/core/reshape/merge.py b/pandas/core/reshape/merge.py
index 3ec78ce52c6e5..9dbb327e3d956 100644
--- a/pandas/core/reshape/merge.py
+++ b/pandas/core/reshape/merge.py
@@ -1021,7 +1021,12 @@ def _validate_specification(self):
                 common_cols = self.left.columns.intersection(
                     self.right.columns)
                 if len(common_cols) == 0:
-                    raise MergeError('No common columns to perform merge on')
+                    raise MergeError(
+                        'No common columns to perform merge on. '
+                        'Merge options: left_on={lon}, right_on={ron}, '
+                        'left_index={lidx}, right_index={ridx}'
+                        .format(lon=self.left_on, ron=self.right_on,
+                                lidx=self.left_index, ridx=self.right_index))
                 if not common_cols.is_unique:
                     raise MergeError("Data columns not unique: {common!r}"
                                      .format(common=common_cols))
diff --git a/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py b/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
index f63c206c0c407..32f83ab972be5 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/reshape/merge/test_merge.py
@@ -270,6 +270,14 @@ def test_no_overlap_more_informative_error(self):
         df2 = DataFrame({'y': ['b', 'c']}, index=[dt, dt])
         pytest.raises(MergeError, merge, df1, df2)
 
+        msg = ('No common columns to perform merge on. '
+               'Merge options: left_on={lon}, right_on={ron}, '
+               'left_index={lidx}, right_index={ridx}'
+               .format(lon=None, ron=None, lidx=False, ridx=False))
+
+        with tm.assert_raises_regex(MergeError, msg):
+            merge(df1, df2)
+
     def test_merge_non_unique_indexes(self):
 
         dt = datetime(2012, 5, 1)