It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 9 January 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 3.

[8] It was named after Cressida, the Trojan daughter of Calchas, a tragic heroine who appears in William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida (as well as in tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and others).

In Voyager 2 imagery Cressida appears as an elongated object, with its major axis pointing towards Uranus.

Perturbations of the ring's shape provide a way to measure the mass of Cressida, which in 2024 was found to be (1.839±0.212)×1017 kg.

[5] Cressida is one of the few small satellites of Uranus for which the mass has been directly measured.