Urodeles was named by Duméril (1806) [also attributed to Rafinesque 1815; spelt as "Urodelia" by Rafinesque and as Urodela by later authors: see Dundee 1989]. It is extant.

It was reranked as the unranked clade Urodela by Säve-Söderbergh (1934), Gardner (2001), Gao and Shubin (2001), Gao and Shubin (2003) and Böhme (2008); it was synonymized subjectively with Caudata by Dundee (1989); it was reranked as the order Urodela by Estes (1964), Carroll (1988), Gauthier et al. (1989), Evans and Milner (1996), Wang (2000), Averianov and Voronkevich (2002) and Zhang et al. (2009).

It was assigned to Choanata by Säve-Söderbergh (1934); to Amphibia by Estes (1964); to Lepospondyli by Carroll (1988); to Lissamphibia by Gauthier et al. (1989); to Caudata by Evans and Milner (1996), Wang (2000), Gardner (2001), Gao and Shubin (2001), Averianov and Voronkevich (2002) and Gao and Shubin (2003); to Amphibia by Böhme (2008); and to Caudata by Zhang et al. (2009).