[1] Linguists originally called the language Santa Cruz after the mission in the area, but it was renamed to Awaswas as part of a move in the late 1960s and early 1970s by graduate students at the University of California Berkeley to use native names for the Ohlone languages.

[5] However, there is evidence that this grouping was more geographic than linguistic, and that the records of the "Santa Cruz Costanoan" language in fact represent several diverse dialects.

Awaswas has been grouped in both the northern and southern branches with different research disagreeing on the best fitting classification.

Some branches within the Ohlone language group have been described as being as similar to each other as different local dialects of Italian, while others, such as Rumsen, Mutsun, and Awaswas "were as closely related as French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

"[3] In 2012, Amah Mutsun [Wikidata] Tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez stated that "his great-great-grandmother was the last of the Awaswas speakers.