After excavation, the specimen was shipped to the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, where it was studied by Marsh, who described it as the new genus and species "Ceratosaurus nasicornis" in 1884. The name "Ceratosaurus" may be translated as "horn lizard" (from Greek , " "—"horn" and /""—"lizard"), and "nasicornis" with "nose horn" (from Latin "nasus"—"nose" and "cornu"—"horn"). Given the completeness of the specimen, the newly described genus was at the time the best-known theropod discovered in America. In 1898 and 1899, the specimen was transferred to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, together with many other fossils originally described by Marsh. Only part of this material was fully prepared when it arrived in Washington; subsequent preparation lasted from 1911 to the end of 1918. Packaging and shipment from New Haven to Washington caused some damage to the "Ceratosaurus" specimen. In 1920, Charles Gilmore published an extensive redescription of this and the other theropod specimens received from New Haven, including the nearly complete "Allosaurus" specimen recovered from the same quarry.