The island was named after Danish Statesman Count Peder Griffenfeld (1635–1699) by Wilhelm August Graah during his 1829 expedition to the east coast of Greenland.

Graah thought that he could see the distant Niviarsiat peaks, on the western side of the Greenland ice sheet, from the highest point of Griffenfeldt Island They were probably, the tops of Niviarsiet, or The Maidens, in the district of Juliana's Hope.

[3]Fridtjof Nansen discovered old Eskimo ruins at the foot of Umanaq mountain in 1882.

[4] Knud Rasmussen visited the island in 1932, in the course of his Sixth Thule Expedition and described Griffenfeld Island as "barren and exposed to the fogs and winter ice of the sea".

[7] The island's coast is deeply indented and off its shore lie several small islets.