Alan J. Charig described the remains of "Teleocrater" in his 1956 PhD thesis for the University of Cambridge. He was the first to apply the name "Teleocrater", derived from Greek "teleos" ("finished", "complete") and "krater" ("bowl", "basin"), in reference to the closed acetabulum of the animal. His initial thesis listed "tanyura" as the specific name of "Teleocrater"; later, in a 1967 overview of reptiles, he revised it to "rhadinus", from Greek "rhadinos" ("slender", in reference to the bodyplan of the animal). However, given that it was never formally published, it remained an invalid "nomen nudum".