Cetiosauridae was named by Lydekker (1888). Its type is Cetiosaurus.

It was reranked as the subfamily Cetiosaurinae by Romer (1956), Steel (1970), Swinton (1970), Bonaparte (1978), Dong et al. (1983), Dong (1990), Dong (1992), Zhao (1993) and Dong (1997).

It was assigned to Cetiosauria by Baur (1891); to Saurischia by Cope (1889), Cope (1891) and Cope (1898); to Diplodocia by Tornier (1913); to Allophagi by Jaekel (1914); to Bothrosauropodidae by Huene (1948); to Bothrosauropodoidea by Kuhn (1966); to Morosauridae by Bonaparte (1978); to Sauropoda by Bakker (1986); to Brachiosauridae by Romer (1956), Steel (1970), Dong (1990) and Zhao (1993); to Neosauropoda by Upchurch (1995) and Upchurch (1995); to Camarasauridae by Swinton (1970), Dong et al. (1983), Dong (1992) and Dong (1997); to Sauropoda by Molnar (1992) and McIntosh (1997); to Camarasauroidea by Dong (1998); to Sauropoda by Lydekker (1888), Lydekker (1895), Huene (1908), Huene (1908), Huene (1909), von Zittel (1911), Huene (1914), Huene (1914), Nopcsa (1923), Huene (1927), Huene (1927), Huene (1929), Rozhdestvensky (1977), Galton (1977), Russell (1984), Bonaparte (1986), Carroll (1988), McIntosh (1990), Hunt et al. (1995), Zhang and Chen (1996), Upchurch (1997) and Bonaparte (1999); to Sauropoda by Dollo (1889), Zittel (1890), Sauvage (1896), Sauvage (1898), Van Den Broeck (1900), Mansel-Pleydell (1902), Arldt (1909), Matthew (1915), Lull (1924), Roxo (1937), Kuhn (1939), Kuhn (1946), Lapparent (1947), Delair (1960), Tatarinov (1964), Delair (1973), Bonaparte (1980), McIntosh (1981) and Chure et al. (2006); and to Eusauropoda by Upchurch et al. (2004), Sánchez-Hernández et al. (2007) and Naish and Martill (2007).