The school is named after its road frontage on Centennial Lane, built in 1876 as a shortcut through Denton Hammond's slave plantation Burleigh Manor between Clarksville and Ellicott City.

[4] In 1996, Centennial High School was the first high school within Maryland to achieve the excellence standard in all categories of the Maryland State Performance Assessment Program's (MSPAP) report card.

[5] In a 2012 joint study by Newsweek and The Daily Beast, Centennial was ranked the second-best public high school in Maryland and number 111 in the nation.

[6] In 2014, Centennial was ranked as the best public school in Maryland and the United States.

[8] In 2015, the Centennial men's basketball team bested Westlake for the Maryland 3A state title.