The common name is in reference to Frederick W. True, a curator at the United States National Museum (now the Smithsonian).

The species was first described in 1913 by Frederick W. True from an adult female that had stranded on the outer bank of Bird Island Shoal, Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina, in July 1912.

[3] Previously, this species was thought to have two separate populations representing potential subspecies; one in the North Atlantic, and another in the southern Indian Ocean.

However, in 2021 the Indian Ocean population (which was found to have a significantly wider range throughout the Southern Hemisphere) was described as a distinct species: Ramari's beaked whale (M.

The most complete description of recorded live sightings and strandings, as well as the first underwater footage, was published in a 2017 article by Natacha Aguilar de Soto[7] in the open access journal PeerJ.