The river is named in honour of Sir John Franklin, a Governor of Tasmania, who later died searching for the Northwest Passage.

The upper reaches of the Franklin River were traversed by explorers in the nineteenth century, in their attempts to access Frenchmans Cap.

Before and since, rafters and canoers have added names for many of the bends and rapids on the river: In the 1980s, the Franklin River become synonymous with Australia's largest conservation movement of the time, the movement battled to block Hydro Tasmania's proposed hydro-electric power plan, from building on the Franklin.

The focus on the dam and the issues of wilderness experience led to the development of people utilising the river at levels never previously experienced.

Richard Flanagan's Death of a River Guide is a fictional account of a drowning, by a writer with an academic and historical understanding of the area.