 The word "squatina" is the angelshark's name in Latin, derived from the word for skate; it was made the genus name for all angel sharks by the French zoologist André Duméril in 1806.Other common names used for this species include angel, angel fiddle fish, angel puffy fish, angel ray, angelfish, escat jueu, fiddle fish, monk, and monkfish.Stelbrink and colleagues (2010) conducted a phylogenetic study based on mitochondrial DNA, and found that the sister species of the angelshark is the sawback angelshark ("S. aculeata").