Myctophum was named by Rafinesque (1810) [Sepkoski's age data: T Mi-u R Sepkoski's reference number: 915]. It is extant.

It was reranked as Scopelus (Myctophum) by Günther (1864).

It was assigned to Scopelus by Günther (1864); to Myctophiformes by Sepkoski (2002); to Myctophydae by Girone et al. (2006); to Myctophini by Schwarzhans (1980), Schwarzhans and Aguilera (2013) and Denton (2013); to Myctophinae by Fraser-Brunner (1949), Fierstine et al. (2012), Martin et al. (2018) and Schwarzhans and Ohe (2019); and to Myctophidae by Arambourg (1925), Arambourg (1927), Heinrich (1969), Ciobanu (1977), Schwarzhans (1978), Nolf and Steurbaut (1983), Bedini et al. (1986), Gaudant et al. (1996), Stringer (1998), Constantin (1999), Gaudant et al. (2005), Gaudant et al. (2006), Gaudant (2008), Schwarzhans (2019) and Argyriou (2022).