Squalodelphidae was named by Dal Piaz (1917) [NOT L. Ginsburg and P. Janvier 1971. Les mamiferes marins des faluns miocenes de la Touraine et de l'Anjou Bulletin du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Sciences de la Terre 6(22):161-195. p. 177.]. Its type is Squalodelphis. It was considered monophyletic by Muizon (1987), Uhen et al. (2008), Barnes and Reynolds (2009).

It was reranked as the family Squalodelphinae by Ginsburg and Janvier (1971); it was synonymized subjectively with Hyperoodontidae by McKenna and Bell (1997); it was corrected as Squalodelphinidae by Muizon (1990), Fordyce and de Muizon (2001), Rice (2002), Geisler and Sanders (2003), Gingerich (2005), Godfrey et al. (2006), Barnes (2006), Bianucci and Landini (2007), Whitmore and Kaltenbach (2008), Uhen et al. (2008), Rice (2009), Barnes and Reynolds (2009), Aguirre-Fernández and Fordyce (2014), Lambert et al. (2014), Bianucci et al. (2015), Marx et al. (2016), Berta (2017), Bianucci et al. (2018), Nelson and Uhen (2018), Viglino et al. (2022), Godfrey and Lambert (2023), Tanaka and Nakagawa (2024).

It was assigned to Squaloceti by Dal Piaz (1929), Van Deinse (1931); to Ziphiidae by Ginsburg and Janvier (1971); to Squalodontoidea by Barnes et al. (1985); to Odontoceti by Pilleri (1985), Geisler and Sanders (2003); to Platanidelphidi by Godfrey and Lambert (2023); and to Platanistoidea by Muizon (1984), Muizon (1987), Muizon (1990), Muizon (1994), Fordyce and Barnes (1994), Fordyce et al. (1995), Rice (1998), Fordyce and de Muizon (2001), Rice (2002), Gingerich (2005), Godfrey et al. (2006), Barnes (2006), Bianucci and Landini (2007), Whitmore and Kaltenbach (2008), Uhen et al. (2008), Rice (2009), Barnes and Reynolds (2009), Geisler et al. (2011), Aguirre-Fernández and Fordyce (2014), Lambert et al. (2014), Bianucci et al. (2015), Marx et al. (2016), Berta (2017), Bianucci et al. (2018), Nelson and Uhen (2018), Viglino et al. (2022), Tanaka and Nakagawa (2024).