Cesare Emiliani was honored by having the genus "Emiliania" erected as home for the taxon "huxlei". This had previously been called "Coccolithus huxleii". He was awarded the Vega Medal of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG) in 1983, and the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1989 for his isotopic studies on Pleistocene and Holocene planktic foraminifera.