The genus name "Dryptosaurus", means "tearing lizard", and is derived from the Greek words "dryptō" (δρύπτω), meaning "I tear" and "sauros" (σαυρος) meaning "lizard". The specific name "aquilunguis", is derived from the Latin for "having claws like an eagle's", a reference to the claws on its three-fingered hand. E. D. Cope (1866) published a paper on the specimen within a week of its discovery, and named it "Laelaps aquilunguis" at a meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. ""Laelaps"", which is derived from the Greek for “hurricane” or “storm wind”, was also the name of a dog in Greek mythology that never failed to catch what it was hunting. "Laelaps" gained popularity as both a poetic and evocative name and became one of the first dinosaurs described from North America, following "Hadrosaurus" and "Trachodon". Later it was discovered that the name "Laelaps" had already been given to a genus of mite, and Cope's lifelong rival O.C. Marsh changed the name in 1877 to "Dryptosaurus". The type species is "Dryptosaurus aquilunguis".