Balaena was named by Linnaeus (1758) [Sepkoski's age data: T Plio R Sepkoski's reference number: 746]. It is extant. It is the type genus of Balaenidae. It was considered monophyletic by Ekdale et al. (2011).

It was assigned to Cete by Linnaeus (1758); to Cete by Illiger (1811); to Balaenina by Gray (1825); to Balaenini by Winge (1921); to Balaeninae by Flower (1867), Lydekker (1887), Trouessart (1898), Trouessart (1904), Hay (1930), Fraser and Purves (1960); to Cetacea by Brisson (1762), Sepkoski (2002); and to Balaenidae by Gray (1821), De Kay (1842), Gray (1846), Gray (1846), Gray (1850), Pictet (1853), Gray (1863), Gray (1864), Flower (1865), Gray (1866), Cope (1867), Gray (1868), Cope (1868), Scammon and Cope (1869), Gray (1871), Gill (1871), Brandt (1872), Scott (1873), Brandt (1873), Brandt (1874), Brandt (1874), Ameghino (1889), Cope (1890), Newton (1891), Ameghino (1894), Cope (1895), Hay (1902), Palmer (1904), Case (1904), Turner (1912), Abel (1919), Miller (1923), Zittel (1925), Kellogg (1928), Weber (1928), Simpson (1945), Ellerman and Morrisson-Scott (1951), Scheffer and Rice (1963), Pilleri (1987), Carroll (1988), Rice (1998), Geisler and Sanders (2003), Bisconti (2003), Mead and Brownell (2005), Bouetel and Muizon (2006), Steeman (2007), Agnarsson and May-Collado (2008), Whitmore and Kaltenbach (2008), Uhen et al. (2008), Bisconti (2009), Ekdale et al. (2011), Churchill et al. (2012), Cioppi (2014), Gol'din and Steeman (2015), Marx and Fordyce (2015), Marx et al. (2016), Berta (2017).